Northern Ireland – Game of Thrones Tour

After a long day of driving across the Republic of Ireland, we crossed into Northern Ireland. If there was a sign indicating that we crossed the border, however, we never saw it. Our first realization that we were back in the UK came when we stopped for gas and they charged us in pounds instead of euros. We were exhausted from fighting with our GPS that wanted to take us north and then east, while we thought it would be easier to go east. It took us probably 7 hours before we reached Belfast.

When we arrived to Belfast, it was raining and just about to get dark. Belfast had more of a city feel to it than any of the other cities we’d seen in Ireland with the exception of Dublin. We found free parking for the night on the street across from our ETAP budget hotel and then checked in. The ETAP hotel was actually really nice. We had clean twin beds, our own bathroom, and the lobby area seemed like a hip hang-out area if we had been staying for longer. The staff was very helpful and gave us recommendations for places to eat. We wandered out into the rainy streets and found a nice Italian restaurant where we got some delicious pizza and pasta.

We heard that Belfast is a really interesting city to explore during the day, where you can learn all about the Troubles and see where the Titanic was built among other things, but we had a pre-determined tour of Northern Ireland planned and not enough time to see everything if we stayed too long in the city. At the time we were in Ireland, the final season of Game of Thrones was premiering and we had Game of Thrones fever. We wanted to hit as many filming locations as possible around Northern Ireland, but we also wanted to see Giant’s Causeway. We made a list of all of the sites that we could visit and figured we would just choose which ones to see as we went based on time. Titanic Studios, the film studio with many of the Game of Thrones sets, is also in Belfast and has a touring exhibition available now.

We got up early in the morning and headed to our first destination, The Dark Hedges. In Game of Thrones, this site is used as the filming location for the King’s Road, but even without being a fan of the show, you can still appreciate the gorgeous trees forming a tunnel around the road. At first, when the GPS told us we had reached our destination, we couldn’t quite see the distinctive trees, but we saw a Game of Thrones sign complete with major show spoilers that confirmed we were in the correct location. We got there around 9am and enjoyed about 5 minutes alone before the masses started to arrive. We walked up and down the length of the road, enjoying the scenery but it began to get crowded and a news crew was setting up. We returned to our car and headed to the next spot.

We decided to cut out a few filming locations that we were less interested in (but if you have more time, check out Mussenden Temple, Portstewart Strand, and Dunluce Castle) and went straight for Giant’s Causeway. We spent a few hours there, which are detailed in another post.

Following the Giant’s Causeway, we drove along the coast to Ballintoy Harbour, which is the location of the Iron Islands where the Greyjoys lived. At first, we stopped at the wrong harbor, but this allowed Brad to use their restrooms and then we continued onto Ballintoy, which was just a little further along the coast. The road to the harbor was very steep and winding, with some cars zooming up suddenly from below. The route was very scenic with lots of little houses along the way. At the bottom, we knew we were in the right place when we found the Game of Thrones sign in the parking lot! Here you could see the black rocky beach and imagine many of the Iron Island scenes taking place. It also provided a beautiful view of the coast! It was free to park and roam around at Ballintoy, and they also had free bathrooms. There was a rather large cave near the bathrooms which we only viewed from afar.

We continued on, and having spent more time than we had planned at Giant’s Causeway, we skipped a number of additional sites (Murlough Bay, Cushendun Caves, Glens of Antrim, and Inch Abbey) in favor of making it to “Winterfell”, or Castle Ward, on time. Our efforts were for nothing, because we got stuck behind several tractors and ended up arriving just as they closed for the day. However, you could still roam around Castle Ward after hours (we were there between 5 and 6pm) for free (normally it is £7 for the grounds and £25 for the tour), which ended up being sufficient for us.

As we were warned from our trip research, Castle Ward does not actually resemble Winterfell as it appears on the show. The most recognizable area is the archery range that were seen in the very first episode of the show, where Bran is practicing his archery as Ned and Catelyn Stark look on. This section is also fenced off unless you pay to do the tour there, and as we did not quite make it on time, this was not an option for us. Although with Brad’s height, you could see the area over the blockade and we were glad we did not pay for it (although if you are into archery, paying will allow you the chance to shoot some arrows yourself). We walked the grounds, exploring the buildings that were accessible, and enjoying the view of the lake nearby, and then we walked back to our car that was parked quite a ways away. As we walked, we noticed many bluebells throughout the grass and some other flowers as well. Erin went to take a picture of one but was grazed by a leaf that caused her hand to swell up for a few hours.

We made it to the car just as it started to rain. We had one more stop we were considering, the Tolleymore Forest Park where the Starks first came across their direwolves, but ended up skipping this stop in favor of making it our hostel north of Dublin.

Ultimately, we did not make it to as many stops as we wanted, but spending more time at Giant’s Causeway was definitely worth it for us. It’d be advisable to spend more than one day in Northern Ireland so you can tour the coastal areas at your leisure, stop at as many Game of Thrones sites as you’d like, and get to experience more of Belfast.

If you are interested in visiting Game of Thrones filming locations as we were, check out our Iceland posts where we happened across several!