Winter Is Coming… 10 Doors and counting…. Game Of thrones Themed Travel …. Northern Ireland
Under Construction
Why Did We Go?
In todays travels, many reasons to go somewhere turn into reality. Perhaps to view interesting and avant-garde art museums, medieval architecture, or scenic countrysides.
With today’s “fandom” surrounding various stories (some pure fantasy, some not) trips to take in filming sites and story locations take on a special meaning and add variety and purpose to a trip. Realizing such fandom success also adds a flavor and possible romance to a trip that might otherwise be more mundane than desirable. The Soulmates have included such “tours”, or tour accents, in the past. One trip years ago, we explored Jurassic Park filming locations on Kauai, another we took in a day long tour of Game of Thrones sites in Iceland. On this trip we ventured into Northern Ireland‘s folklores and mysteries and spent several days self-touring the Game Of Thrones “Doors”. What motivated us to think about this? Well our travel companion, daughter Kati, had been to Dublin and Galway, and really wanted to see something of Northern Ireland. So as the Soulmates had never been to either part of the Island, accommodating this idea was an ease step.
Game of Thrones Doors? Yes that’s right. If you are looking for a reason for an adventure that will take you the “length and breadth” of Northern Ireland, and add locations like the filming site of Castle Ward which was used for Castle Stark, or Tollymore National Park the site of several scenes, or the Dark Hedges part of the road to Kings Landing…. well then this adventure is for you!
This story starts of course with a disaster. What good Game of Thrones story doesn’t have some sort of Drama? In 2016 “Gertrude” a major storm impacted Northern Ireland, knocking over two beech trees in The Dark Hedges. The Dark Hedges was used as the passage road to/from Kings Landing. To commemorate this tremendous event, portions of the felled trees were parsed out into 10 locations with a door CNC carved for each location from the portion of the tree by cncrouterit.co.uk and focused on several episodes. These doors were then set up at their respective locations throughout Northern Ireland including Hotels, Pubs, and Resorts. Each door location is also tied to one or more filming locations and some ghost stories making for a potential extensive Itinerary. Believe it or not the soulmates, Judy and Dirk, along with travel partner Kati, visited all 10! We also learned along the way that our initial and even our successful and final effort/routing was less than ideal and we were successful by way of a day or so of sacrifice. So there are some lesson(s) learned that we will share with you here to hopefully either save you the sacrifice or help you turn that time into a valuable investment!
Our first day out had us departing the Dublin area. We had flown into Dublin thinking 2-3 days in the Dublin area, 2-3 days for the doors, then off to Galway… well as Steinbeck wrote ”…the best laid plans of mice and men…” . Right after breakfast at the Lucan Spa Hotel, we headed north with the plan to take in what seemed like an easy cluster of three doors and their associated filming sites. First off we underestimated the time to drive to Northern Ireland especially with our GPS set to “Avoid Tolls”. This GPS setting afforded us the opportunity to see some beautiful horse country estates along narrow winding roads all while driving on the left side (Wrong Side… yeah lots of practice) of the road. But it was not fast.
Some Lessons here:
1. Bring or rent a GPS… When out and away in the countryside you CANNOT rely on cellphone based navigation. We opted for a Garmin Nuvi 51 replacing our old Navi 50. The 50 we had had since we started touring Central America with third party vendor map/nav downloads. For Ireland we were able to use the Garmin Northern European Map set as an add on to our North American map-set. Fortunately the newer Garmin 51 had the capacity to accommodate both.
2. Have good calm spotters (Vulcans like Mr. Spock who don’t get over excited if possible {;-> ) and can act as a navigator backing up the GPS;
3. Patience! This trip is gonna take longer than you think by a factor of no less than 3, and likely more so get ready to just relax;
4. Remember why you are there… to enjoy the experience, not simply to check a box.
So there we were with a goal of visiting three doors and their associated filming locations… on day one. What did we get done (see lesson # three above)? We saw one Door and one Park with filming locations in which we could have wandered all day. So internalizing the lessons learned we recognized we hadn’t planned 2-3 days per site, and really needed to and so we adjusted our planning to focus on seeing just the Doors. If we got lucky and got to see a nearby filming location too…even better, but applying lesson three and focusing on seeing the doors and close-in establishments became our primary objective.
Something that did help, once we set our focus, was that Doors are associated with things like the Balleymore Castle Hotel with its resident ghost so we planned an overnight stay there, and Molly McBrides Pub Great Seafood stew? And near the Mary McBrides Where Judy and Kati took a side trip to the caves where Melisandre gave birth to the daemon that killed Renly Barathian (fortuitous proximity of a filming location) while Dirk relaxed at the pub after a day of driving on the wrong side of the road.
It wasn’t until our stay at Ballymore Castle that we learned that a “Passport” describing that the doors existed, their locations, and provided a stamp page where each of the establishments would provide a unique stamp documenting our success in visiting! Well that of course, is a souvenir not to be missed. So unfortunately some retracement of visits was going to be needed to make this work. Lesson Learned Number six… Is there a commemorative document/passport for the tour…. check early to save retracement or failure in collecting a complete souvenir.
Of course single mindedly focusing on the doors also risked the investment value of some parts of the trip so we also planned time to visit … yep the Bushmills Distillery, and Giants Causeway. What trip to Northern Ireland would be complete without taking in these notable locations?
After looping back east across Northern Ireland, to pick up Door‘s numbers Ten, Three Two, and One, in the passport, we found ourselves in Belfast and Bangor where we spent a night at the Salty Dog. What a nice place that was and it was the first place in Ireland (northern or the Republic of, where we could deviate from having the “Traditional Irish Breakfast” of grilled tomato, black pudding, scrambled egg, boiled mushroom, baked beans, and bacon… and instead ordered Eggs Benedict! Yes, the traditional is nutritious, however, variety is the spice of life. We were happy for the divergence and our favorite “sauce.” The substitution of “soda bread” vs. English Muffin was a bit of a variable but not too much.
This second/3rd to last day in Northern Ireland we traveled south from Bangor to Portaferry and Newcastle and back to Percy French to collect the GOT Door Passport stamps we had missed …since we didn’t realize there was a passport when we started out (remember planning lesson number six…what commemorative items are associated with your trip? … not just spoons I hope).
We got into Portaferry early, and were successful in visiting Door number Two at Fiddlers Green and then took the ferry across to Newcastle where we met the Dire Wolves in the park and took in Door Number One at “The Cuan” and securing our passport stamp. We followed this with a visit to Castle Ward (Castle Stark) where Bram Stark was pushed from the tower by Jamie Lannister, and we spent most of the afternoon there. We finished our door round up for the day collecting the stamp for Door number Three at Percy French Restaurant where we had previously dined and so did not dawdle. We grabbed what ended up being an unusually long dinner in Newcastle where the kitchen seemed under siege due to a large party or two (Lesson Learned number seven … ask about how long it might be to get served) then lit out like a banshee was after us along narrow country roads to get to our Hotel/country club stay at the Nuremore Hotel And Country Club in Carrickmacross for the night.
Were we done with the doors? Well not quite. It seems that to make sure they could claim the “width” of Northern Ireland some genius put door number four in a wonderful place named Einniskillen … clear in the west part of the country. So as though in search of the Holy Grail, off we went to find it, hopefully with enough stamina to make it south to Galway afterward. After all, we started our trip in the Republic of Ireland and this Journey-of-the-Quest-of-the-Doors was to have been an interesting aside … as it turned out, the Quest-of-the Doors became the trip and visiting the Republic, the aside. Ah well, the best laid schemes of mice and men often go awry (as penned by Robert Burns and adapted by John Steinbeck in “Of Mice and Men”.
So are we going back to the Doors? Tempting to be sure but if we do this we’ll want to do more to visit the filming locations and so to be true to the “lessons learned” we should plan at least two weeks, possibly three.
So having done this what would our plan be for a return? Well I’m still inclined to run the route from end to end rather than to do the zig zag like we did. And I’d plan more touring time. So assuming Brexit leaves crossing the border easy, I’d still start in the Dublin area, and take in places like Trinity College and the Passage Tombs at The Grange. Then head north to stay at-least one night possibly two at Strangford, Newcastle, or Portaferry, and capture doors one, Two, and Three. And visit Castle Ward, Tollymore state park and Percy French restaurant . I’d then head to Belfast and tour the sights there for a day or two (lots to see) and visit The Dark Horse and see Door number 10. I’d drive the Door Quest north after that and head to Ballygally Castle Hotel for door Number Nine. Then continue the next day to Cushindun and Mary McBrides, Ballintoy and the Fullerton Arms (great stew and muscles), and overnight at the Hedges” in Strancum and take in the Dark Hedges and Gracehill House. This route will take in Doors Eight, Six, and Seven Respectively.
This leaves a Trip to Limavedy and Owens Pub (great bar keeper but have a care for locals looking for a free drink ;), and a long back country haul south to Einniskillen securing doors five and and Four respectively …. and yep… you’re done with the basic quest!
Via a less efficient route door Four was our last door, and from here we headed on to Galway…. heading back into the Republic where we could spend our Euros, albeit driving along narrow, winding country roads on the wrong side for several hours in the rain.
Let’s wrap-up with a disclaimer. We have no relationship with any of the establishments or productions mentioned in this article. They are simply places we visited or stayed or reflected on during our self funded trip to Scotland in September of 2018. We share them with our readers for informational/editorial purposes only.