Belfast

I’m not going to lie, the only reason we added Belfast to our travel list was for Game of Thrones purposes. We were not disappointed!!! I booked us a Game of Thrones Tour before we left. So today we spent all day adventuring around the coast of Northern Ireland seeing all these places where GOT was filmed. 80% of GOT was filmed here in Northern Ireland so there are soooo many places and people that are involved in its production. Our tour guide is an extra for GOT as well as for the show Vikings. He was the absolute typical Irishman, expect for the fact that he looked homeless from his contract with HBO stating he cannot cut any part of his hair! His accent was awesome and extremely colorful! 😉 As well as seeing all these different GOT scenes come to life, we also got to see the Giants Causeway. This is a part of the coast that was formed from volcanic rock that pushed itself up and somehow formed these amazing beehive type shaped pillars. 

Anyways, back to game of thrones.... we learned that every one of the actors are complete gentlemen and fantastic. Kit Harrington’s hair (according to our tour guide) smells like peaches. The actor who plays Hodor is a DJ, who now travels the world doing the Rave of Thrones, which is now on my bucket list. Many of the actors came from the streets of Belfast. The woman who plays Mellisandra is a scary beautiful woman. The man who created the Iron Throne is a HUGE lord of the rings fan and put a replica sword of Gandalf into the Iron Throne. Look for it next time you watch and episode! The people of Belfast and Northern Ireland are extremely proud of Game of Thrones. Belfast has the biggest export green screen studio in the world. 

We started out going to this little tiny coastal town where they filmed Arya getting out of the water after she gets stabbed by the waif. Then we went to the caves where Mellisandra gives birth to that demon spawn thing that kills Renly. After that we went to the Iron Islands where we got to dress up in Iron Islands gear. We passed Castle Black. We ate at the Fullerton Arms which is this little pub/bnb where many of the characters stayed while filming Iron Islands scenes. We saw the ruins of Dunluce castle which was the inspiration for Harrenhal. (Fun fact, these ruins are also thought to be the inspiration for Cair Paravel in C.S. Lewis’ Chronicals of Narnia.) (Another fun fact C.S. Lewis was born in Belfast) We also saw Stannis’ camp where Breanne of Tarth fought for a place in the kings guard. And last we saw the dark hedges. A few years ago a huge storm came through Northern Ireland knocking a few of these huge trees from the dark hedges down. The creators of GOT asked to keep the wood from these trees and created these intricate doors that depict scenes from GOT and gave them to different places that helped in GOT production. So the Fullerton Arms has one of these doors which was super cool. 

Northern Ireland is also known for their fabric weaving. So people created this HUGE tapestry depicting all of seasons 1-7 that is on display for free at the Ulster museum. It was so beautiful! 

We absolutely loved nerding out. Even if you don’t watch GOT this tour allows you to see some truly splendid coastal sites that took my breath away! 

Valar Morghulis! Winter is coming!