Excursion to Northern Ireland

Another day trip out of Dublin on our Ireland vacation – on this occasion we headed up the island and crossed the border into Northern Ireland to admire the rolling hills, lush green Glens (valleys) and the picturesque northern coastline.

Dark Hedges

Northern Ireland is one of the main filming locations for Game Of Thrones HBO series, so naturally our first stop en route was at the Dark Hedges – a wooded tunnel made of intertwined Beech trees that was used in one of the season 2 episodes (The Kingsroad).

Iconic tree lined roadway of the Dark Hedges

Carrick-A-Rede

Once we reached the coast we made our way to the Carrick-A-Rede rope bridge, which is thought to have been built by salmon fishermen to reach an adjoining island. The narrow bridge overlooks a 20m chasm over choppy waters and jagged rocks, and the gusty winds blowing across ensure that the jaunt across the rope bridge is not for the faint of heart.

Picture postcard views of the emerald hued Northern Ireland coastline

Precarious Carrick-A-Rede rope causeway

Visitors gingerly making their way across the rope bridge

Birds eye view of the Carrick-A-Rede rope bridge after an easy hike

Easy to see where the ‘Emerald Isle’ name comes from

Giants Causeway

Further north is the Giants Causeway, famous for its hexagonal angular basalt rocks that seem to jut out from the beach like intricately arranged stepping stones. The peculiar rock formation has volcanic origins, but the locals stick to their belief that it was created by a Giant named Finn McCool so he could cross the ocean over to Scotland and duel with another giant. After an hour of hopping around the stones we lunched at a nearby pub then made our way to Belfast, with a quick stop at Dunluce castle, another Game of Thrones filming location.

Angular basalt rock formations that make up Giant’s Causeway

Peculiarly unique rock formation of Giant’s Causeway

Stone seats everywhere!

Summited the Irish strairmaster

The stone formations continue even into the nearby hillside caves

Dunluce Castle aka Castle Greyjoy from Game of Thrones

Belfast

Once the hotbed of Irish separatist violence between Catholic Irish Republicans and Protestant Loyalists to the British crown that lasted over 40 years, Belfast is now a thriving young city that is becoming popular with tourists again. It was surreal to walk the bustling and peaceful streets of the city – all I can remember of Belfast growing up was the never ending stream of news reports about IRA bombings.

Belfast was once a shipbuilding powerhouse and the dockyard cranes still tower over the skyline. Its most famous product the Titanic was built in the docks here before it made its first voyage to Southampton. We also saw the Europa hotel: ‘The most bombed hotel in Europe’, which was bombed 36 times during the separatist violence but has since been refurbished and even hosted the Clintons during a Presidential visit in the late 90s.