7/7/19 - Northern Ireland Game of Thrones Tour!
/Day 21. I apologize for the long post in advance but it is GOT after all…
Our intrepid travel agent John found a GOT tour out of Dublin for Leanne and me. The bus tour traveled to Northern Ireland to many of the sites used in the filming the show. The main post production company is in Belfast so there are a lot of places in surrounding areas used in the show. You have to be 18 or older to go so we had debated the merits of an all-day bus date without the kids. We rationalize that the kids really need a “free” day to recover and watch Netflix and this a once in a lifetime opportunity for us.
On our walk over, Leanne says “you know we might we be the only people over 40 on this tour.” Makes me think of the Taylor Swift concert I made Leanne get us tickets for my birthday and I think we were the only people over 21 without kids. We arrive and Leanne is mostly right but we are relived that there is one couple older than us. That is until the tour starts and the tour guide asks if there is anyone on the bus who has never seen GOT. Oh great. Sure enough the older couple raises their hand. Puzzled, Leanne says “why would you go on a GOT tour if you’ve never seen GOT?” I respond, “they probably thought it was a trivia game about the Royal Family.” Well, I guess that makes us the oldest people on the bus who’ve actually seen GOT.
We cross the border into Northern Ireland and Leanne looks at me and says, “you know our kids are in another country than we are right now.” Oh well, too late to go back now. We say a silent prayer. Not sure who the patron saint of well-behaved children is but we prayed to him or her. We watch a documentary on the making of GOT and then come quiz time.
We have to take a 10 question quiz and the winner will be crowned “King of the North”
for the day. I’m figuring the questions have to be pretty tough and Leanne and I have only seen each episode / season once. I’m hoping the first question will at least be something easy like which character is known as the Mother of Dragons. Alas no luck. The first question is how did the character hmma doona whooda die? I know that’s not an actual character but it was an oral multiple choice question and I have no idea what character the tour guide is referring to. No Bueno.
We manage to get 5 out of 10 right which I am fairly relieved at given how the first question started. We feel better when one college student who was at our table at lunch had watched every episode of every season 5 times and he got 8 out of 10 right. Apparently, college students have more free time than we do.
The winner gets 10 out of 10 and wins the tie-breaker question. Turns out that he has read all the books as well as watched the series. I make a note to self to tell the kids if they ever want to win a trivia game on a bus tour about a movie or TV series, they need to read the book and not just watch the movie / show. At the next WIFI hotspot, I vow to download the GOT book and start reading it. No way I’m going to lose the GOT trivia game in Croatia. The tour guide asks who got the lowest score and eventually ferrets out the poor guy who only got 3 right. She says when we dress up later, he’ll get John Snow’s sword because when it comes to GOT, You Know Nothing! I thank my lucky stars I beat that guy out.
Our first stop is at Tallymore National Forest. It is a walking tour and we walk deeper and deeper into the ever thickening forest. We see the places where they filmed the opening scene in the Wildling Pit, where John Snow and Tyrion camped on the way to the wall and where the Starks find the Dire Wolves. The forest is right out of a magical setting, tranquil and serene.
We stop at a nearby small town for lunch. The entire town has been transformed into a GOT town. The lunch place has been turned into a GOT banquet hall with drinks served in King Robert’s Horns, Winterfell Tankards and Imps Delight Wine Goblets. They have costumes and swords you can take pictures with.
We talk to the college student with too much time on his hands and his girlfriend and he says he came here just for this tour. Leanne asks where he’s from and he says “Taiwan.” I gag on my Winterfell Tankard and think you have to be kidding me. “You flew all the way from Taiwan to go on this tour?” I asked incredulously. “No, no. I came to London to see my girlfriend and we came to Dublin for the tour.” Flying from London is better than Taiwan at least but this guy is clearly serious about GOT. Leanne and I can identify all the House flags in the banquet hall but one so I ask our new friend. He answers but whilst giving me a look that says, “you seriously don’t know which House flag that is?” I am left feeling unworthy and thinking that I should have asked to be seated at a table with other GOT newbies.
While we are eating, this guy comes in who looks like he was straight out of the movie with huge flowing hair and long flowing beard. He tells us the story of how he bought two northern Inuit dogs (they are closest breed to a wolf). Two weeks later he gets a call saying this TV series wants to use the dogs in the show. Well he parlays two Dire Wolves into an entire GOT family career. He, the two dogs, his dad and two brothers were all cast in the show and also had jobs in casting, picking scene locations and post production editing. We get to meet and take pictures with the dire wolves and family. The dad has a book of articles on the family that have published all over the world and he has shown to over 500,000 people on tours over the past 9 years. Some people win the lottery and some people buy two dogs that turn into a winning GOT lottery ticket. Now that’s capitalism at work.
In the afternoon, we go to Castle Ward which is where a lot of Winterfell courtyard scenes were filmed. The tour guide showed us what in the scenes was real and what was computer generated images. She says, “I bet you are a little disappointed to learn that only ~25% of the scene is actually real. Yeah, I was disappointed too when I first learned that. Oh well, time to move on to the next scene.” Hmm…I don’t think they should put her in charge of marketing the GOT tour.
We go to a place in the woods with a tree along the road. The tour guide asks if anyone knows what scene involves a character standing up against this tree. Everyone is stumped except our college lunch friend who says, “oh that’s easy, when Jamie was tied to the tree and Lady Brienne kills the 3 starks on the roadway.” Did I mention that I think he has too much time on his hands?
The final scene visit is a field used when Stannis’ army was camped out at the Riverlands. I ask the guide “if almost the entire scene is CGI, why do they even bother slugging all the way out here for the 5% of the scene that is real, why not just do 100% CGI in the studio?” She gave a non-answer and I don’t think she liked the question. Probably because the answer is that they should have but then there wouldn’t be a GOT tour and she wouldn’t have a job as a GOT tour guide.
On the way back, we watch the first two episodes of season one. We arrive back at the flat, the kids are just fine and we declare our GOT date day a success!
