Westeros Royals in Ireland (GoT tours Dublin)
December 03, 2018
You might be
wondering who these Westeros Royals are. Are they some sort of Irish monarch or
anything? Where is Westeros? Ireland? There’s a place called Westeros in
Ireland? I’ve never heard of it, are the princes and princesses gorgeous? Well
to answer that very question – the Westeros royals are very much handsome. But
sadly, they are fictional like really really fictional and non-existent. But, why are you talking about them if
they’re not real? Well to make it simple, fantasy is a great thing. On the
other hand, there are those out there who know the existence of Westeros which
I believe are the fans of this show called Game
of Thrones (me included!). It is no doubt one of the greatest series in TV
history. When I think about Ireland, the first thing that often came to my mind
was Game of Thrones (GoT). So I’m calling all fans of the mighty show Game of
Thrones to prepare a cuppa, sit back, and enjoy reading this.
When I knew I
was going there I had all these crazy ideas of visiting all filming locations
there but thanks to time constraint, I couldn’t. That’s a reason why I should
go back! I then realised that I was going to Ireland, not Northern Ireland as the
filming location is located in. So what I did was; I went on internet and
searched for GoT tours starting from Dublin. And luck was on my side after all,
there are tours from Dublin. What is
this Ireland-not-filming-location-thang-you’re talking about you may wonder. THE Ireland I’m talking about is
Northern Ireland of the UK, not Ireland the republic where our students go to
med school! Not to be confused, both Ireland and Northern Ireland are two
separate countries but both are in the same island. There wasn’t any border if
you’re wondering so no passport control and stamps on your passport if you
travel overland.
Now, the journey itself. That
morning, I rode Aircoach at 0300 from Cork to Dublin. The bus was comfortable,
good wifi and it has toilet as well. I was pretty much asleep the whole ride as
it was still early in the morning. When I woke up, I was already in Dublin and
it turned out, I was the only one whose stop was at Bachelors Walk with the
others were bound for airport. Summer morning in Dublin was cold. I believe the
temperature that morning at 0615 was 9°C. So much of summer lol. I wasn’t sure
what to do as it was still early and I couldn’t find any nearby cafe or
convenience store for a cup of coffee. With nothing much to do, I decided to
walk to Hilton Garden Inn which was actually the meeting point but I couldn’t
stand the cold as I was only wearing a hoodie and jegging so I went for a
stroll along the canal to heat up my body before I decided to sit on a bench at
Pearsey South Docks overlooking a very cool ship that looks like a pirate ship
aha!
I sat there for a quite some time observing people running, walking to their workplace, smoking, smiling at me and all. The cold was too much for me as I wasn’t properly dressed so I went for a walk again after sitting there for 30 minutes or so. It felt like eternal to be honest, given the time I was waiting for the tour to pick us up plus the cold. I went around the canal square, crossing River Liffey to the other side, walked slowly to kill some time until I finally decided to cross back through Ballsbridge --
-- which reminds me of the Millennium Bridge in London (y’know the one featured in Black Mirror) and I was welcomed with EPIC Ireland - The Irish Emigration Museum. I spent some time taking photos before I finally went to Hilton Garden Inn.
I sat there for a quite some time observing people running, walking to their workplace, smoking, smiling at me and all. The cold was too much for me as I wasn’t properly dressed so I went for a walk again after sitting there for 30 minutes or so. It felt like eternal to be honest, given the time I was waiting for the tour to pick us up plus the cold. I went around the canal square, crossing River Liffey to the other side, walked slowly to kill some time until I finally decided to cross back through Ballsbridge --
-- which reminds me of the Millennium Bridge in London (y’know the one featured in Black Mirror) and I was welcomed with EPIC Ireland - The Irish Emigration Museum. I spent some time taking photos before I finally went to Hilton Garden Inn.
The tour started at 0800 hours
and the pickup time was at 0745 but they arrived pretty late plus there was
some who got to the pickup point late. But not like Malaysian late so it didn’t bother me much. I opted to seat in the
first row and to be fairly honest, it was pretty lonely for me as I was alone
and did not have anyone to talk. So, best to go with a fellow friend or anyone
in your life that loves the show as much as you do. Or maybe, I wasn’t lucky to
meet another solo go-er during the tour. Okay back to the point, our tour guide
was Lar, a very nice and funny lad. He’s one of the extra as a Wildling in the
show and Vikings as well. He told us about working with Kit Harrington saying
what a fine bloke he was and how super dope to work with the rest of the crew.
Next is our driver whom I forgot his name but he was super awesome as well.
After briefing, Lar started handing us a pen and a piece of paper called Brain Of Thrones ---
We made a rest stop at Applegreen
Castle Bellingham, a simple R&R
with Subway, Costa, convenience store, and toilet obviously. I was so sleepy
and hungry so I got a mocha from Costa, being the OBVIOUS muslim who didn’t
fast during Ramadan but musafir mode
though. Frankly, I purposely decided not to fast that day due to extensive
amount of hiking and trekking. And midday got to be pretty hot that I was
regretting my choice of wearing a hoodie that made me look like a total
delirious arsehole (read: like wearing jumper in Malaysia in the day). 40 minutes
later we were all ready for Newcastle where Tollymore Forest was at. Once all
of us got down from the bus, we were handed with cloaks. We walked into the
forest in our cloaks and we got to this place where Will, a deserter from the
Night’s Watch saw the bodies killed by the White Walkers before he got beheaded
by Ned Stark. Poor him =(
courtesy of Google
courtesy of Google
From there, we went to North of
Winterfell for scenes from episode one of the first season. Ned Stark along
with Robb, Bran, Jon, and Theon were returning from the execution of the
deserter when they found a dead stag which had gored a female direwolf. She had
given birth to pups, all of which huddle by their mother’s corpse.
The direwolf is the symbol of House Stark (if you don’t know) and finding there are as many pups as these are Stark children, they take the pups back to Winterfell one each for Robb, Sansa, Arya, Bran and Rickon Stark, and Jon Snow. After that, we went to see the place where Jon and Tyrion stopped for rest en route to The Wall. We then got to cross Stepping Stones which I’m sure you’ve seen a picture of it at least once in your life.
courtesy of Google
Stark sigil
The direwolf is the symbol of House Stark (if you don’t know) and finding there are as many pups as these are Stark children, they take the pups back to Winterfell one each for Robb, Sansa, Arya, Bran and Rickon Stark, and Jon Snow. After that, we went to see the place where Jon and Tyrion stopped for rest en route to The Wall. We then got to cross Stepping Stones which I’m sure you’ve seen a picture of it at least once in your life.
credit to; Frederick Bancale
credit to; Gary McParland
We then went to a little town
called Strangford for lunch at The Lobster Pot. But I was a bit awkward and not
feeling for big meal so I asked Lar if it was okay for me to not dine and go
for a walk. He said it was fine and told me there’s a shop that sells official
merchandise down the street. But the first thing I saw were the direwolves! But
they’re busy with Belfast group so I went to the store and shopped a bit. I forgot to bring pounds so I had to use my Euros when I was buying the merch. It was stupid honestly hahaha. I
then walked to the direwolves place and there was this grandpa who saw me
looking at them outside the cage so he was like ‘’oh lady you can go inside and pet them’’ and he went to talk to
this guy and he let me in. I legit thought he was their staff but he was just a
passerby hahahaha but hey I got to spend time with the direwolves all by myself
for a quite some time before my Dublin group came to play with them. They are
not real direwolf or even wolf anyway. They are Northern Inuit, German Shepherd
+ Alaskan Malamute + Siberian Husky + Samoyed + Grey Wolf crossbreed. My point
is, I finally got to meet Odin & Thor who played Bran’s Summer and Robb’s
Grey Wind like the whole purpose of me joining the tour was to meet them! I pet
them and boy they were so cute. I watched them being fed by Ross, eating ice
cream. And look how happy and photogenic they are!
It was Castle Ward (or Winterfell
on the show) we’re heading next. It was just a touch-n-go because we went to Audley’s
Castle first.
It was seen in Season 2 as the location for the Battle of Oxcross where Robb met Talisa that came to a bloody end at the Red Wedding. And if you read the book, Talisa didn’t even exist. He married some Jeyne, daughter of a Lord somewhere. We went along the shore next where Brienne & Jaime found 3 people hanged and Lar decided to sing us some song from Vikings. And we went back to Winterfell. He briefed us about the stable where Bran used to practice his archery training and we took a group photo there.
It was seen in Season 2 as the location for the Battle of Oxcross where Robb met Talisa that came to a bloody end at the Red Wedding. And if you read the book, Talisa didn’t even exist. He married some Jeyne, daughter of a Lord somewhere. We went along the shore next where Brienne & Jaime found 3 people hanged and Lar decided to sing us some song from Vikings. And we went back to Winterfell. He briefed us about the stable where Bran used to practice his archery training and we took a group photo there.
WINTERFELL
All good things must come to an
end right. It was our last stop of the tour before heading back to Dublin. Our
last location was Inch Abbey. It was seen in Season 2 as well when Robb was
declared King in the North. Honestly, it was such a lovely place. Nice ruin I
might say. We took group photo with banners, sigil, swords and all props we
could find. After tons of picture and tons of screaming ‘’King in the North!’’ ‘’King in the North’’ ‘’King in the North’’, we
were done with the tour.
I was recording myself walking
with the banners yknow and when I watched the recording man I look so stupid
hahahaha but yeah I had my fun. After that, I decided that I was done playing
King and Lords so I took off my cloak when I heard ‘’and yeappppp
with that she’s done playing’’ and we laughed together.
On our journey back to Dublin, Lar asked if there's any of us going to the Game of Thrones Live Concert Experience as we're gonna pass 3Arena so they could just drop off and I was silently crying, figuratively yea because I honestly wanted to go but I had to go to UCC the next morning for graduation and it's gonna end so late and I have yet to go back to Cork. Maybe next time yeah? My musician ass was so frustrated lol. So anyhoo, I asked Lar to drop me at Bachelors Walk instead of Hilton Garden Inn because I need to catch bus to Cork and we parted our way from there.
On our journey back to Dublin, Lar asked if there's any of us going to the Game of Thrones Live Concert Experience as we're gonna pass 3Arena so they could just drop off and I was silently crying, figuratively yea because I honestly wanted to go but I had to go to UCC the next morning for graduation and it's gonna end so late and I have yet to go back to Cork. Maybe next time yeah? My musician ass was so frustrated lol. So anyhoo, I asked Lar to drop me at Bachelors Walk instead of Hilton Garden Inn because I need to catch bus to Cork and we parted our way from there.
The waiting game to get a bus from Dublin - Cork was so bloody annoying. I waited for 1900hrs bus anyway. Let me tell you how Aircoach works. First, they'll call those who got their tickets online and only then the rest could aboard and boy how crowded it was. Everybody was going to Cork apparently. And yeah. I missed it. It was getting so cold and I was holding my pee. I wanted to urinate so bad. There's this girl waiting for the bus as well beside me so I asked her where's the public toilet and she said she's not sure so she told me to use the toilet in one of the bars. I went up to this bar called Fitzgeralds which happened to be behind the bus stop and the staff told me I had to go inside from the back and it was so confusing so I just thanked him and went to walk and I stumbled upon O'Sullivans.
I just went straightaway inside and I didn't even finish asking him whether I could use the toilet yet and he was like "yeah yeah it's back there" which was so cool aha! He's probably used to it lol. I spent quite some time for the warm, drank water, fix my scarf, washed my face and I finally went out. I thanked the bartender and went out. And again, the 2000 and 2100 hrs bus were still a miss and I was so close to give up but I couldn't because graduation??? And thank the Godssssssss I managed to get a spot on 2200hrs. I arrived in Cork at 0130 I think. Man. I was so exhausted of GoT trekking and walking plus my lack of sleep. I still had to wait in the cold for a bloody taxi back home. Luckily a driver saw me so after sending his current passenger he came back for me *cries*. Once I got home, the fare was €13 and I only had €10 left! I asked the driver to wait for me as I was gonna get the €3 but he said it's fine. It's on him. MANNNNNNNNNN I LOVE IRISH!
3 comments
Love this amazing place, as well as Game of thrones, already waiting for its next episode.
ReplyDeletemeet and greet luton
Last episode was so good right I really wish I was in Ireland though
DeleteGreat place to visit. I watched Game of Thrones 10 times. Really like it.
ReplyDeleteBirmingham park and ride
Luton park and ride