Step into Westeros
Game of Thrones filming locations that include forest, castles and coastlines let fans follow characters’ footsteps
BELFAST, NORTHERN IRELAND— There’s a town called Blackskull on the road from Dublin to Belfast, which stands out morbidly in a modern European country, but would seem completely normal if it were on the Kingsroad heading north, or somewhere between Winterfell and Castle Black. You might be in a rented Vauxhall Corsa, but you’re definitely entering the world of Game of Thrones.
HBO’s hit fantasy series returns for its penultimate season on Sunday, but if you can’t get enough of the dark, bloody, medieval world of the Starks, Lannisters and Targaryens, you can always go to the places where George R.R. Martin’s hit novels have been turned into epic television, just outside Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Belfast is a great home base for a Game of Thrones tour, since it’s where the production is based, at the Titanic Studios that have taken over the former Paint Hall of the Harland & Wolff shipworks by the River Lagan.
The scenic Causeway Coastal Route north from the city through County Antrim will take you through locations featured in many of the show’s seasons. Carnlough Harbour, with its stone walls and piers, is where Arya Stark, wounded by the Waif, dragged herself out of the canals of Braavos in Season 6. It’s raining when we arrive, but as soon as the weather clears, buses full of tourists from China — most of them young women — appear and pose for selfies where actress Maisie Williams pulled herself out of the chilly water.
Further north are the eerie Cushendun Caves, a local attraction even before it became the setting for a famous scene in Season 2, when Davos Seaworth witnessed the red priestess Melisandre give birth to the shadow baby that would kill Renly Baratheon. Nearby Larrybane Bay, with its famous Carrick-A-Rede rope bridge, also features the old seaside quarry that became Renly’s camp, site of the royal tourney where Brienne of Tarth made her first appearance on the show.
The fishing village of Ballintoy, farther along the coast, has stood in for the Iron Islands, where poor Theon Greyjoy had his ultimately disastrous homecoming in Season 2, and where his murderous uncle Euron is baptized on the shallow waters of the beach in Season 6. Helpfully, there are plaques in place at many of these locations, with photos and descriptions of the onscreen action that took place there.
The Dark Hedges, near Ballymoney, has been a tourist attraction long before Game of Thrones came here to shoot. A row of ancient beech trees planted on the drive to a manor house in the 18th century, their sinuous, twisted branches have attracted artists and photographers for decades. They made the briefest appearance as the Kingsroad in Season 2, but they’ve become iconic nonetheless, with so many cars and coaches pulling up that plans to close the short road to traffic are under discussion.
The day’s journey ends at Portstewart Strand, whose broad windswept dunes became the coast of Dorne, where Jaime Lannister and the sellsword Bronn are discovered after they smuggle themselves ashore to rescue Jaime’s “niece,” Myrcella.
The view is spectacular as clouds form over the sea by what’s probably the nicest beach I’ve seen north of Spain.
The second day takes you south into County Down, and the setting of Winterfell, ancestral home of House Stark. The 17th-century tower in the farmyard at Castle Ward became the focus of the scenes filmed for the first episode of Game of Thrones, where King Robert Baratheon and his court descend on the Starks’ home for the royal visit that sets the story in motion.
Winterfell Tours is based here, and after we’re kitted up with swords and cloaks, we meet William Van Der Kells, our guide, dressed in full Stark retainer costume. He takes us on a tour and shows how set builders and digital effects transformed the tower and outbuildings into Winterfell castle. We also get an archery lesson that turns into a competition. (Not to brag, but I win, and our instructor says that for some reason, Canadians always seem to do well in every tour group.)
Before a hearty lunch in a teepee beneath the tower, Van Der Kells takes us out to Audley’s Castle, an old stone keep on the shores of Strangford Lough, which became part of the Twins, the home of the treacherous Freys. After climbing to the top of the keep, we have a pitched sword battle that some members of our group find oddly satisfying.
We pass the curious manor house at Castle Ward on our way out — one side Georgian, the other Gothic — and drive to the achingly picturesque ruins of Inch Abbey, where Robb Stark was proclaimed King in the North before his rebellion was cut short at the Red Wedding. The final stop is Tollymore Forest Park, a managed woodland and park, where the show’s crew filmed the first major scenes of the series in the fall of 2009.
Van Der Kells takes us to the lovely forest stream and bridge where the Starks discovered the dead direwolf and her pups, and then takes us into the eerie clearing among the towering trees where a patrol of the Night’s Watch saw the massacred and mutilated wildlings and got a first glimpse of a White Walker — the scene that set the whole story of poisonings and beheadings, rebellions and dragons rolling. Everyone standing in the clearing is a fan, and they know the story is going to be over soon, and as we look up through the trees we all wonder who, if anyone, will still be alive? Rick McGinnis was hosted by Northern Ireland Tourism, which didn’t review or approve this story.