Game of Thrones Tour

Connor and I spent the day in Northern Ireland visiting some of the filming locations for Game of Thrones and it was awesome!! The country is beautiful and we had so much fun! The tour group that we went with met at 8 this morning and took us by coach bus to Belfast and the surrounding areas. If anyone is planning a trip to Ireland, we definitely recommend this tour! There is a small amount of hiking, but it's really enjoyable and not very strenuous. To help get you in the mood, they gave us cloaks to wear and they were warm enough that I only wore a light sweater underneath! If anyone is interested, the website we booked through was http://www.gameofthronestours.com/ and if you are planning on doing the tour, you may want to stop reading this so that you get to experience it all without "spoilers"! If you haven't watched the whole show, almost the entire tour is filming locations from just the first season.

One of the main reasons we had such an amazing time was the great guide we had! Eric was really friendly and knowledgeable, but also offered a new perspective because he was an extra in season 5 and the upcoming season 6. His anecdotes were so interesting and funny and really made the tour special.

On the ride there, we watched a few scenes to get us into the mood as well as playing a round of trivia! We also watched some of the behind the scenes clips that showed how it was filmed and how some of the CGI worked, As someone whose"film making" knowledge is just setting my phone camera to video, this was so interesting. I had no idea the extent they went to to achieve these amazing shots. I definitely have a new appreciation for it. For example, the opening scene of the entire show is only about 2 minutes long, but it took them 10 weeks to prepare it. This was the first place we visited on our trip.

Before visiting each of the locations, we were shown stills from the show as well as a short clip on an iPad. If you want to see the clip, watch the first 3 minutes here, but for anyone who may not have watched before, just know it's a little graphic.

Doesn't Connor look spiffy?

walking into the haunted forest oooooo 

But actually this is Tollymore Forest Park which was the first state forest park in Northern Ireland

The tree where the "dead" girl was hanging

Wildling pit from where Will first sees it

Wildling pit from above

Part of our group gathered around the pit looking like come creepy cult or something! At least we weren't chanting

The next place we went to was where Jon and Tyrion talk in episode 2 on their way to the wall. You can watch the clip here

where the camp fire was

*swoon* my very own Jon Snow

Next we saw where the Starks found the Direwolf puppies! Definitely watch the clip here

On the bridge where they find the dead stag

The location is unbelievable! 

 This was it for spots in the forest, but it was so beautiful I had to take a few other pictures as well even if they weren't Game of Thrones related! The view coming in was also breathtaking, but I couldn't get a picture from the bus window. We drove past the Mountains of Morne, which was where CS Lewis got his inspiration for The Chronicles of Narnia so we had to drive through Narnia to get to Westeros!

Oh look! There's that group of weirdos again!

This is from on top of the bridge overlooking where they found the Direwolves

Connor's Gandalf-esque walking stick

After we left the forest, we drove a little bit further to this really quaint restaurant. We placed our orders ahead of time so by the time we arrived, they had a private room with a fire going for us all set up with our food all ready. The best part about this pit stop though was who we met while we were there! Eric, our tour guide, is friends with this family who calls themselves the "Game of Thrones family" because so many of them have been involved with the show from the beginning. The dad is a slave master with the Dothraki for 6 episodes in season 1, their son is wildling, and their cousin is something else that I can't remember. But the best family members of all are two of the dogs that play the direwolves!! We got to meet Odin who plays Grey Wind (Robb Stark's direwolf). He was so laid back and well trained! The father and son were both there and talked to us for a long time, answering all of our questions, telling us about their experience, and taking pictures.

The coolest this about this pub is that it's literally right down the road from where St. Patrick built his first church and where he died. With St. Patrick's Day just around the corner, it definitely put us in the mood!

Odin/ Grey Wind!!!

William keeps a scrapbook of all the scenes his family has been in, as well as pictures taken with the big stars of the show.

He said how happy he is that GoT has encouraged tourism in Northern Ireland

After lunch we headed for Winterfell!! In season one, they filmed at Castle Ward Estate, but now they've built a super secret set at an unknown location. Before we drove up, I was expecting this really huge, impressive fortress, but it's actually 10 times smaller than it seems in the show, since most of it is created through CGI. They filmed King Robert arriving in the North here and you can watch the clip

approaching Winterfell

In case you didn't know, coach buses are a common means of transportation in Westeros

where they filmed Bran climbing, they just CGIed the whole thing to make it look taller and without the windows!

where the brothel is located

After this, we had a short walk to the Twins, where we learned there aren't really any "twins" because one of the towers as well as the connecting bridge don't actually exist and that it's all CGI. The walk there was absolutely gorgeous! We also got really lucky because it wouldn't have been much fun walking through all that mud if it had rained!

This is actually Audley's Castle, which was built in the 15th century, but it is used as where the Freys live and where the Red Wedding is supposed to be set

We only visited one filming location from season 2, which was when Brienne has Jaime prisoner and they come across 3 dead tavern girls hanging from a tree. We went past where they docked their boat and the tree the girls were in. You can watch the clip here

The last place we went to was the ruins of a 12th century Abbey where Catelyn and Robb are delivered bad news and the Stark banner men declare him "King of the North" here is the clip. You can see the big windows in the back, but pretty much everything else is CGI since the original structure was destroyed by vikings hundreds of years ago. Instead, we used the location to dress up and play with swords, Jon and Brienne's swords to be exact!

Stark shield

The Hound's mask!

I'm really intimidating I swear!

In case you couldn't tell by the pictures, Connor and I had so much fun! It was a long day, but one of the best we've had in Europe so far!