Taking the Giant's Causeway to the Iron Islands

Although this summer has been going wonderfully, there is something missing. I may be traveling, meeting some amazing people and finding that the Netherlands has seriously stepped up their vegetarian game.  However, there is also a distinct lack of blue-eyed zombies, dragons and little blond badasses in my life.

In other words, I want my Game of Thrones back. Seeing as George R. R. Martin is not taking my calls and I inadvertently cancelled my HBO subscription (but not before the finale of Westworld), this situation called for drastic measures. If the seven kingdoms would not come to me, then clearly I must go to the seven kingdoms.  I've already been to King's Landing (aka Dubrovnik) and Braavos (aka Girona), so maybe it was time to check out the Iron Islands, the wall and pretty much everything else in between. In order to do this, a trip to Belfast was in order.

After an early evening arrival, I set off to explore the city. My first fortuitous find was Darcy's, a  popular local restaurant with the most amazing vegetarian pie ever. (Note: pie as in the flaky crust with vegetables, cream sauce and a million calories inside type- not the apple, whipped cream and  million calorie variety). This led me to what would be become my local haunt for the remainder of my stay, Madden's.  A local bar that wears its Nationalist roots proudly, it is also the host of the city's biggest traditional music jam. At one point in the evening, I tried to count the number of fiddles, but between the Harp beers and the crowded room, it was truly a lost cause.

I could have stayed all night but I had already booked an early morning Game of Thrones tour, because of course I had. On the drive home, my Uber driver asked what brought me to Belfast- this after an evening of talking to Sinn Fein commanders about the city's history and listening to all these passionate musicians playing- I felt sheepish admitting that I was there in pursuit of a fantasy world. But I said it anyways and was thrilled I did. My driver had been an extra! On multiple episodes!!! He was part of King Joffrey's guard!!! 

I'd been in town just a few hours and had already met an actual Throne-person. I walked into the hostel, gushing about this lucky turn of events, only to be told that every person in Belfast has been an extra.  For the next couple of days, I put this to the test, asking random locals "So, what was your role on GoT?" Yup, Hostel guy was right. Part of HBO's contract with the Irish Film Board states that all extras and crews must be residents of Northern Ireland so every person I talked to was either a Wildling, a guard or one of Littlefinger's working girls.

The super cool Global Village hostel

Our first stop on the tour in the small harbor town of Carnlough did a good job of setting up expectations for the rest of the day. While Dubrovnik's distinctive architecture was featured prominently when Cersei undertook history's first recorded walk of shame and Girona's tiny medieval streets shaped the image of working-class Braavos,  Northern Island has served mostly as the series' generic (albeit highly picturesque) backdrop. 

In terms of logistical reasons, we were here because there was a bathroom, a coffeeshop and an ATM and it was necessary to get all of that out of the way for the passengers of this completely packed bus. But there was, if you looked really closely, a connection to GoT.

So- SPOILERS APLENTY AHEAD- remember when Arya was being chased by the stick-wielding Mistress of the Limp Hair and jumped into the water. That happened in Girona but thanks to the magic of Benioff and Weiss she miraculously was able to pull herself up in Carnlough (which Google maps tells me is almost a 24 drive/ ferry combo away).

These are the steps she used to get out of the water...

Even with the information provided by the tour guide, I was having a hard time finding the spot (and even joined others in photographing a completely unrelated set of stairs). Thankfully, the Northern Ireland tourism board realizes what kind of goldmine they are sitting on and have placed handy signs in any spot that is even tangentially GoT related.

Somewhere along the drive, we passed The Wall. On the show, it is 700 feet tall and made of solid ice. In reality, it is the side of a quarry that has had some white paint slapped on it. I failed to get a photo of it and I am ok with that. Turns out that the majority of the wall-related scenes are CGI and green screen work.

Next up, Melisandre's birthing suite aka the cave where Ser Davos served as the unwitting doula while the red witch gave birth to a demonic shadow baby. It's pretty standard as caves go and were it not for the busloads of tourists wielding selfie sticks, it would not stand out at all.

Hi. Demon Shadow baby here. What'd I miss?

A short drive later, we found ourselves on the Iron Islands, more specifically on the spot where Yara Greyjoy made the case why she should be queen only to have Uncle Euron show up mansplaining all over the place and reminding everyone- repeatedly- that his nephew, Theon has no dick.

As this is billed as a Game of Thrones tour and the locations require the visitor to use a fair amount of imagination (particularly when the video system aboard the bus is broken), the tour operators have found a wonderfully cheesy way to hammer the theme home...costumes. They had about a dozen robe/ sword combos which were to be shared amongst all the participants. In order to get them  from the parking lot to the filming location, about a 5 minute walk away, they had the first group don the costumes bus-side and walk fully-robed. Overhead from a passing group "Why are those assholes wearing Game of Thrones costumes?" Thankfully I was one of the latter participants to get my shot at the robe. 

Nearby was the undisputed highlight of the tour and- surprise, surprise- it had dick all to do with Game of Thrones (no offense, Theon).  Notably, the creators have already stated that they will never use this location as they feel it is too recognizable.  We were at the Giant's Causeway.

Technically speaking, this is a place where a volcanic eruption took place and created over 40,000 hexagonal basalt columns. The way in which the lava cooled resulted in this totally unique landscape which has been named a UNESCO world heritage site.

Then there is the Irish explanation. Strap in for this... So, there was an Irish giant named Finn MacCool who was shit-talking the Scottish giant across the way. A challenge was issued and Finn, who believed himself to be el mas macho, built a causeway for the Scottish giant to come over and throw down. To his evident surprise, the Scotsman agreed and crossed over. At this point, realizing perhaps for the first time that the Scottish giant was, well, a fricking giant, Finn panicked and ran to his wife. As it has been since time immemorial, a woman had to use her wits and save the day. She devised a plan where she dressed Finn as a baby and put him in a crib. Do not ask how she happened to have a giant baby furniture laying around, as with GoT, it is often best not to get bogged down in details. So the Scottish giant comes to the house and says something along the lines of "Awrite, madam. Ah am haur tae kill yer husband. Dae ye happen tae ken whaur he might be?"  She tells him that it is just her and her wee baby at the moment but that Finn will be back shortly. The Scotsman thinks to himself "If the baby is so massive, how big is the father?" and hauls ass back to Scotlands tearing the causeway up as he goes.

To recap: One giant runs away in fear while the other sits there in what I imagine are soiled diapers, sucking on a giant pacifier. I'm not entirely clear who the winner is supposed to be in all this.

There is a similar volcanic formation on the Scottish side and I am now really curious to hear what their version of the story might be.

There was a lot of hype going into our next stop. The Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge was first created in 1755 by salmon fishermen who simply needed to get to the the island. Many iterations of the bridge later, it is now a tourist attraction so popular that the timed tickets to cross it often sell out. Knowing this, I had purchased the "deluxe option" in order to guarantee myself entry. Our guide talked about the crossing in harrowing terms and even suggested that those of us who were doing it should grab a drink at the Giant's Causeway in order to ramp up our courage. 

Real talk: the bridge is 66 feet long, which is crossing terms is like a minute, it's clearly sturdy and by the time you get your chance to cross, you have already seen a busload of fat elderly tourists traipse from one side to the other with no issue. The scenery is stunning, no question about it, but if anyone finds crossing this thing "scary", they simply need to get out more.

Note the bridge on the left hand side.

More real talk: this also had absolutely nothing to do with Game of Thrones.

This was rectified in the last two stops. Dunluce Castle, a series of medieval ruins sitting right on the water had a second life as a heavily CGI'ed House of Greyjoy.

And finally, there was the most recognizable of all the locations. A road of Beech trees known as the Dark Hedges which has received its notoriety as the King's Road, where many a character have fled to or from King's Landing.

The spot has become so associated with the show that a while back, a freak windstorm knocked down some of the Beech trees, the wood was repurposed into making 10 carved doors representing scenes from the show. The doors were then donated to various locations around Northern Island. Only one sits in Belfast, at the Dark Horse bar.

With my Thrones nostalgia somewhat satisfied, I still had a another day to enjoy. By virtue of signing up for the GoT tour, I was able to get a discounted pass for the Hop-on/ Hop-off bus so that became the day 2 plan.

The guide, an actual live person not a glitchy recording available in 25 languages but somehow stuck on Esperantu, pointed out the many of the places of interest.

There was the City Hall, where you can find a memorial to those who died aboard the Titanic.

The Prince Albert Memorial Clock, which appears in constant danger of toppling over despite restoration to halt its literal decline. I'm not sure why they didn't just give it a shove seeing as Prince Albert's wife, Queen Victoria, showed up to Belfast once- after much expense to prepare the city for her visit- took one look around and said "Uh, no" and high-tailed it out of there.

We then crossed the bridge over to the dockyards where the Titanic was constructed. It is safe to say that they probably built a great many ships that did not sink but you would not know it by the state of things.

Holding a prominent spot in the harbor is the Titanic Museum, which details every single step of the ship's building process.  I went in, half reluctantly, because I am not really into ships (or cars, or planes..) and I hated that damned movie but it seemed like a thing to do.  Having spent a couple of hours there, I have to say that the museum is really well done. It starts off talking about the advanced nature of the city's manufacturing sector at the time and then goes deep into the building process (including a ride where you soar around the shipyard watching men hammer bolts into the hull). There are replicas of what the different class cabins would have looked like and first person accounts from those that were there. It all culminates with the post-analysis of what went wrong, complete with massive charts detailing where the damage to the ship occurred. Finally, there is a room with a photographic simulation, culled from thousands of photos taken by marine exploration vehicles, of what the wreckage looks like now. It is the director's position that the ship and its contents should be left in peace on the ocean floor and thus they refuse to display anything that has since been salvaged, so this virtual experience fills the void nicely.

I'm Queen of the Wor....wait, who the hell took my clothes?

On the left, the spot where the Titanic was first put into the ocean. On the right, Titanic Studios, where a lot of Game of Thrones is filmed.

All that disaster, not to mention the threat of having to hear Celine Dion caterwaul that song- note: thankfully she doesn't - left me hungry and thirsty. The renovated Cathedral Quarter fills that niche nicely with plenty of bars and restaurants to choose from.

After lunch, it was time to focus on the part of Northern Irelands' history that most comes to mind when you think of Belfast: namely the Troubles. Even after getting an educational crash course from my new friends at Madden's, I still can't say I fully grasp the politics of it all but the hop-on tour guide attempted to shine some light on the day to day reality of it all.

The Europa Hotel holds the dubious honor of being the most bombed hotel in all of Europe.

The first thing that is painstakingly clear is that the situation is not over.  There was a ceasefire agreement signed in 1998 and Belfast is not the dangerous no-man's land that it once was but that is not to say that all is either forgiven or forgotten.

Neighborhoods are very distinctly segregated. If you enter an area and see a bunch of Union Jack flags flying, you can be certain that you have entered a Unionist or Protestant area.

If you see a lot of signs in Gaelic, then you are in a Nationalist or Catholic area. There are some Irish flags to be found but not nearly as many since it has been decided that flying it is considered a provocation. Instead, you will see a unusually high number of Palestinian flags. The occupation of Palestine by the Israelis has resonated as a cause commensurate to their own struggle to be liberated from the British. Therefore, the proxy flag and plenty of flyers announced Pro-Palestinian rallies abound.

Most shocking to me was the fact that there is still a very literal wall dividing the two communities, parts of which are locked at night. It is referred to as the Peace Wall and perhaps that is accurate. Unlike their Palestinian counterparts, both the Nationalists and the Unionists seem to want this wall to remain. There was a vote not too long ago proposing tearing it down. Both sides voted against it for fear that the wall's removal would lead to violence.

This may turn out to be a wise move as no one knows what the bone-headed Brexit may bring. At this moment, there is no border crossing between Ireland and Northern Ireland (which is considered part of the UK) since they are both EU nations. But if the UK leaves the EU, then what happens? Some hard decisions are going to have to be made and with both sides as entrenched in their positions as they are, the outcome is far from clear.

After all, these are people that can not agree on the proper nickname for their sculptures. As I mentioned in my Dublin post, the Irish can not resist the temptation to change the names of any and all monuments. Take the Beacon of Hope, erected in 2006 to celebrate a period of relative peace. 

If you are a Nationalist, she is the Nuala with the Hula. If you are a Unionist, she becomes the Belle on the Ball. There is also The Thing with the Ring, but I'm not sure who gets credit for that one.

I feel like I could have spent weeks there, getting to know the city and its welcoming people, not to mention trying to score myself one of those sweet Game of Thrones extra gigs, since it has been confirmed that the prequel will also be filmed in the area. Alas, I only had one more morning to enjoy. 

I spent it taking in the sights one last time and stocking up for my short flight home at St George's market. 

Later, I saw a restaurant offering a vegetarian version of a traditional Irish breakfast and I was all over it. As I sat, looking through my photos, the chef came out to greet me. It was Gus, the same guy who had welcomed me the very first night into Madden's!  Like Sansa Stark coming back to reclaim Winterfell, I too had come full circle.