Monthly Archives: January 2015

Day 5 in Croatia: Walking in Khaleesi’s footsteps in Meereen

06 Tuesday Jan 2015

Posted by in Croatia, Europe

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This is the sixth of seven posts on the Selfish’s customized Game of Thrones tour. Check out the other posts here:

From Split, Mrs. Selfish, Cousin Selfish and I started the 5-hour long drive to Dubrovnik. Our first stop? Klis fortress, the Game of Thrones exterior shot location for the city of Meereen.

Meereen

Yeeeaahhh… Klis Fortress doesn’t really look like that.

The actual fortress is pretty damned impressive. Perched high atop a rock bluff, Klis fortress has been a defensive stronghold in the area for over two thousand years.

Klis!

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Day 4 in Croatia: Crashing a Braavos Set and the Masters

05 Monday Jan 2015

Posted by in Croatia, Europe

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This is the fifth of seven posts on the Selfish’s customized Game of Thrones tour.  Check out the other posts here:

After eight days in Ireland and N. Ireland, Mr. Selfish and I finally made it to Croatia. We met up with Cousin Selfish, who is coincidentally also a Game of Thrones nerd, in Zadar, Croatia.

We stayed a couple of nights in Zadar and visited Plitvice Lakes National Park before heading to Split, Croatia. There wasn’t too much GoT action until we left for Split though, but that’s when things got real.

Kastel Gomilica: A Clandestine Visit to Braavos

On our way to Split, we stopped by Kastel Gomilica since I had read online that they were preparing a filming location for Braavos there. We parked the car near the beach and started walking. We didn’t know where the set was but we could see a picturesque building from afar so we started walking in that direction.

Update: After having watched Season 5 Episode 2, this is indeed where Arya Stark lands in Braavos.

vlcsnap-2015-04-26-08h36m31s228GoT Sets 06

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Day 3 in N. Ireland: Dragonstone, Renly’s Camp, and a Trip to Dorne

04 Sunday Jan 2015

Posted by in Europe

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This is the fourth of seven posts on the Selfish’s customized Game of Thrones tour. Check out the other posts here:

After an exciting day traversing the North Eastern side of Northern Ireland, Mrs. Selfish and I settled into our new base camp at Port Stewart. Located just west of Portrush and Giant’s Causeway, Port Stewart is a quaint, seaside town.

After a brief chat with our B&B owner, we learned we had just missed the Game of Thrones crew, who had been in the town a week earlier filming on the local beach!

Game of Thrones Day 3 017

Zounds! We were hot on the trail. (Also, not my pic)

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Day 2 in N. Ireland: The Iron Islands, King’s Road, and the Red Woman

03 Saturday Jan 2015

Posted by in Europe

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This is the third of seven posts on the Selfish’s customized Game of Thrones tour. Check out the other posts here:

During Day 1 of our Game of Thrones Tour, Mrs. Selfish and I drove from Dublin to Belfast, which was a bit too fast if I’m honest.

Availability to Ireland was tight, so I ended up booking us on 2 Red-eyes to Dublin – TWO! I didn’t even think that was possible, but it is if you do one red-eye to Charlotte North Carolina, crash in a Hyatt Place for 6 hours, then jump on another red-eye to Dublin.

So yeah, kind of brutal. Fortunately, by Day 2 of our unofficial Game of Thrones tour, the jetlag was starting to wear off. Partially thanks to an excellent sleep at the Hilton Belfast, star hotel of Season 1 of “The Fall.”

the-fall-highres_8colThe Fall

Yes! A cameo show location WITHIN another show location tour. Wha??

Ok, ok. So no one watches The Fall. But you should – it is an excellent show about a cop (Gillian Anderson) hunting down a serial murderer in Belfast. Plus, said serial killer is played by the dude that’s slated to be Christian Grey in the upcoming 50 Shades of Grey adaptation (squeal!). But again, I digress…

Day 2 saw us jumping back in the car and tackling Northern Ireland’s North Eastern coast. Despite Northern Ireland’s notoriously shitty weather, it is absolutely gorgeous.

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Day 1 in N. Ireland: The Haunted Forest, Winterfell, and the Twins

02 Friday Jan 2015

Posted by in Europe

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This is the second of seven posts on the Selfish’s customized Game of Thrones tour. Check out the other posts here:

After spending two nights in Dublin, Mr. Selfish and I embarked on our Game of Thrones tour proper. On our drive to Belfast, we had three filming locations on our list – the Haunted Forest, Winterfell, and the Twins.

Tollymore Forest Park is the Haunted Forest

First on our list was Tollymore Forest Park, otherwise known as the Haunted Forest in GoT. The most notable scene in the Haunted Forest/Tollymore is in the first episode of season 1, in which the Stark family discovers the dead dire wolf and her pups.

Mother_of_direwolves

Tollymore is a beautiful park with a very large area for exploration. We had to pay admission for our car, which was only 4.5 pounds. As soon as we arrived, we knew we were in the right place to start our GoT tour.

Tollymore and Castle Ward 02

Yes, that’s a Game of Thrones tour bus with a tour guide all dressed up.

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The Selfish’s Very Own Game of Thrones Tour

01 Thursday Jan 2015

Posted by in Croatia, Europe, Game of Thrones, Ireland, Northern Ireland

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This is the first of seven posts on the Selfish’s customized Game of Thrones tour. Check out the other posts here:

As we were still recovering from the triple jet lag we suffered as a result of our trip to Greece and Taiwan, Mr. Selfish asked me where I wanted to go next. After a brief moment of consideration, I said that we should do a Game of Thrones tour. I had recently become obsessed with the television series and had started reading the books. So just like that, it was settled.

The next step was to figure out where Game of Thrones was filmed. Some quick Googling revealed that GoT has been primarily filmed in Northern Ireland, Malta, Croatia, Morocco, and Iceland.

N. IrelandMaltaDubrovnikMoroccoIceland

The only place that we had previously visited was Morocco, so I decided to skip that location. It seems like you need to visit Iceland during the winter to get the GoT experience, and we were planning our trip in August, so Iceland was out too. That left N. Ireland, Malta, and Croatia.

Mr. Selfish looked at our points and decided that the best routing for us would be to N. Ireland and Croatia.

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