Ireland day 1119. Monday 21 October 2024- Game Of Thrones

Today’s summary	Drove up the M1 and across the border to visit the Game of Thrones studio tour. Around a third of all the HBO TV series was filmed at the Linenmills studios, where the visitor centre is located (most of the remainder was filmed at the Titanic studios in Belfast). An excellent day trip and especially interesting if (like us) you have watched all 71 episodes of the series.
Today’s weather	Bright with scattered cloud but mostly dry. Moderate south westerly wind. Appx 14c

Today’s overview location (The blue mark shows the location of our route)		Close-up location (The red mark shows where we walked) (No GPX today)

Commentary

I have to admit a dark secret. Both Val and I have watched the HBO fantasy series “Game of Thrones” and – even more embarrassingly – really enjoyed it. Given that almost the whole series was filmed in and around Belfast, we felt that we really ought to see if we could find out a bit more about the whole thing was produced. Well, in answer to our wishes, in 2022 a visitor centre was opened at the Linenmills studio, where about a third of the actual filming was done.

As it happens, Linenmills is only 75 minutes’ drive up the M1 from here, so paying a visit really couldn’t be easier. I’m not quite sure why we hadn’t visited before but I guess we’ve just been extremely busy. But one of the good things about not currently being preoccupied with work is that you have lots of flexibility to be spontaneous about doing things. So we exercised some of that flexibility this morning as we were having our breakfast tea, and decided that today was our day to cross the border and make our acquaintance with the Iron Throne.

It was a good decision, because it turned out that we had almost the whole visitor centre to ourselves. There was a handful of other people about, but by and large it was deserted. So we pitched up at the Boulevard shopping centre, where you leave your car and somewhat puzzlingly take a shuttle bus to the studios themselves, about ten minutes’ drive away. The Boulevard, by the way, is a smart new centre with all the usual outlets – and of course we had to visit the Marks and Spencers to pick up an up-market pop-pop meal for dinner.

We really enjoyed the tour itself. It was well done, with detailed explanations about how the costumes and backdrops were made and filmed, and lots of full scale sets. There were some interactive AI-based displays, where you could digitally dress an image of yourself in armour and Ice King make up, and it all seemed to work very well. Even if you hadn’t ever watched Game of Thrones itself, I still think you would find it pretty interesting. The only thing that didn’t work brilliantly was the self-guided audio. Personally, if I went again, I don’t think I’d bother.

We paused mid-tour to break out into the restaurant, where we enjoyed our Highgarden and North of the Wall salads, then resumed our exploration and finished the whole thing after about three hours.

So – a very successful day out. I’m not sure I’d feel the need to go back in a hurry, but it was thoroughly enjoyable today. But now the M&S Chinese takeaway needs to go in the oven and then we can settle down to see if there’s another box-set we can watch (and by the way – the Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon is turning out to be a real disappointment – not a patch on the original).

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Entrance to the Linenmills Studio. It’s some way away from where you leave the car at the Boulevard shopping centre in Banbridge, and you are ferried there by shuttle bus which leaves every 20 minutes	Contemplating making a challenge for the throne

Map of Westeros (where most of the action is set) and the adjacent continent (to the right) of Essos	Even different scenes set in single site were often filmed in multiple locations. King’s Landing, for example, was filmed in Malta, Spain, Croatia and Northern Ireland

Entrance to the Throne Room at Kings landing, where the Iron Throne sits	The sign which greets you as you arrive at the shuttle bus departure point

Dragon’s skull, kept in the cellars of Dragonstone. You don’t get any idea of the scale – it’s roughly the size of a small helicopter and three people can easily stand inside it. This one is made of rubber, resin and polystyrene