The University Quarter around Queen's University Belfast is the academic and residential heart of the city, a neighbourhood of Victorian terraced houses, student bars, good restaurants, and cultural venues. The university itself — a Lanyon-designed Tudor Revival building of 1849 — is one of the most attractive pieces of architecture in Belfast.
The neighbourhood has a more relaxed atmosphere than the city centre, and its bar and restaurant scene on Botanic Avenue and Stranmillis Road is good. The Ulster Museum and the Botanic Gardens are here. On summer evenings, the benches in front of the Lanyon Building fill with students and locals, and the area has the pleasant buzz of a university campus at ease. It's a good base for visitors who want more tranquility than the Cathedral Quarter provides.