Nothing says a long weekend like a quick trip to Western Europe and back! We may have been a little ambitious by booking it one month after getting back from Asia however Dublin is only a quick 6-hour flight out of Boston. We decided to start our itinerary with a few days in Northern Ireland.
Why go to Ireland in January? When I think of Ireland, I think of rolling green hills, gorgeous cliff side photos, and sunshine. We found it cheaper to go off-season and it’s less busy. Yes, it has been overcast and cold but it hasn’t made the trip any less fun! Our journey began when we landed in Dublin at 5:30AM.
Running on little sleep, we made our way to the rental car agency. I denied all insurance, as I always do, because the insurance provided to me on my Capital One Venture card is plenty. Word of advice, look over what your credit card offers for rental car insurance. Denying insurance can come with a hefty hold on your card (over $6k in this case). It may vary from company to company so do your homework. We got our hands on a Skoda Octavia. For the first time in my life, I’d be driving a car on the opposite side and on the opposite side of the road. Woo boy.
An inside view of our Skoda!
Shifting with the left hand felt somewhat awkward at first but I was surprised at how quickly I picked it up. I thought I would stall the car at least once. I proved to be a more capable driver than I gave myself credit for. Humble brag.
We actually spent no time touring around Ireland and headed straight for Northern Ireland. There are two countries on the island of Ireland. Northern Ireland is a part of the United Kingdom and Ireland is its own country, independent of any British rule. It’s a long, bloody history so I will spare you the details but I suggest doing some reading…at least a Wikipedia article. More importantly for travelers, Northern Ireland uses the British Pound (£) and Ireland uses the Euro (€). There isn’t a physical border that separates the country however due to the 2016 Brexit vote, they are still working out the details on how to handle the border issue.
The main draw of Northern Ireland for me was the fact that numerous scenes from Game of Thrones were filmed in Northern Ireland. We made our way to Castle Ward aka Winterfell. The sun didn’t come out till around 8:30AM and we got to Winterfell at 9. We had to stop a couple of times because our trusty Skoda was making some precarious noises that made me think the front axel was about to fall off. Luckily, the travel gods kept it in tact. While you may not recognize it from the outside, once you get a view of the inside, you can see Winterfell come to life.
Castle Ward has wasted no time in milking the Game of Thrones fame and understandably so. There’s actually a whole “Game of Thrones Experience” where visitors get to dress up, practice archery, and play with Direwolves. A post from the blog, Follow Me Away, does a great job of highlighting many more Thrones filming locations if you’d like to see more. Due to time, we spared ourselves of accidentally shooting someone with an arrow.
After exploring Castle Ward, we set forth for The Dark Hedges. The Dark Hedges is nothing more than a rural road surrounded by ominous looking trees. It makes for a beautiful photo and it’s the setting for a scene from Game of Thrones S2E1 when Arya escapes King’s Landing with Robert Baratheon’s bastard, Gendry. Luckily when we got there, things were pretty quiet.
With Thrones now behind us (there are many more filming locations!), we grabbed some lunch and made our way to the Carrick-a-Rede Bridge in Ballycastle.
The Carrick-a-Rede Bridge is about an hour outside Belfast and home to the famous rope bridge. The weather wasn’t very cooperative but we managed to get a few scenic shots. We did not choose to walk across the bridge (and glad we didn’t pay to do so). The bridge itself is quite short but the views are awe-inspiring.
By the time we finished at Carrick-a-Rede, the light of day was slowly slipping away. One thing about visiting Ireland in the dead of winter is that the days are much shorter. We used what time we had left at the Giant’s Causeway. The lore behind the Causeway begins with giants who were trying to get to Scotland but hated the water.
We found the entrance fee a little steep. It was about 21£ or $30. It is a little hard to avoid the crowds and difficult to get pictures without anyone in them. The stones are beautiful and the rock stacks look like tall organ pipes. It’s quite similar to the rock formations you would find on Vik Beach in Iceland. Try to pick a time that is less busy and avoid the fee by climbing up over the building and back down the other side. Although signs claim that the staff checks tickets on the way out, we didn’t see anyone doing so. Perhaps if we had gone down this route, we wouldn’t have felt the way we did leaving. Beautiful area nonetheless! 
We finished our day with a bite to eat at the Harbour Gin Bar on Portrush. I had lamb kebabs with a pepper cream sauce and of course, washed it down with a pint of Guinness. And yes, it tastes better on this side of the Atlantic. With that, we finished our first busy day. We spent our next day in Belfast. More to come on that!
