Sun is out, no rain in sight - time for exploring!
Visiting great places in Northern Ireland
Although I love exploring places where I live, I usually do not find time to do so. Before I moved to Belfast, I decided that this time, I want to use a bit of my free time for travelling, sightseeing and exploring. In these few months here, I learned to enjoy the city, but never really explored the surroundings, the coast etc. Basically - I never left the city. Having a friend from Germany over for a visit - and I should mention, she is a huge Game of Thrones fan - was a great opportunity to come out a bit and finally see some of the places on my list, with the Giant’s Causeway being my #1 for a while now! So I booked the Game of Thrones Bus Tour. We left Belfast at 9 am (no rain in sight, which was a great thing after a few rainy and gray days) and got to our first location after approx. 2 hours - Carnlough, a village in County Antrim. Its harbour is - among GoT fans - famous for its small stairs, which were part of a scene in S06E07 where Arya Stark, after being stabbed repeatedly by the Waif and jumping into the water, crawls up back into the streets of Braavos (of course I did not remember this, but fortunaltely, all scenes were shown during our bus ride :D). Our next location were Cushendun Caves, where Melisandre gave birth to a shadow baby (season 2) and Jaime Lannister fought Euron Greyjoy (I disliked that guy so much) in S08E04. Our third location was the Giant’s Causeway, and I finally got to see it! A nice place and definitelly deserves to be called “a geological wonder” - over 40.000 basalt stone columns created as a result of a volcanic eruption. What kinda takes away the magic of this place is the huge number of visitors (me obviously being one of them) and for that reason, I was much less overwhelmed finally being here than previously imagined (I was expecting tears of joy once I finally come here, but nope, that did not happen). My personal highlight - yes, I was surprised there was something I like more than the Giant’s Causeway - Carrick-A-Rede Island and its famous Rope Bridge (which I - unfortunatelly - did not cross due to a very loooong queue). This location also offered a great view on the Larrybane Quarry, Sheep Island, Rathlin Island and Scotland. Our last location was The Dark Hegdes, an avenue of beech trees along Bregagh Road, which can be seen in S02E01, when Arya Stark, disguised as a boy, escapes from King’s Landing. It was really hard to take a nice picture here, as again, the avenue was crowded with tourists. We arrived back in Belfast sometime around 8 pm, pretty exhausted, but very happy (the weather was just amazing that day!) and full of great impressions. If time (and weather) allows, I will definitelly go back to Carrick-A-Rede, to cross that rope bridge :)
