Winter is coming... so Helen Raine dons her cloak to find you sensational holidays based on the swashbuckling HBO fantasy-adventure TV series.
If you were hooked on Game of Thrones and don’t know what to do with yourself until the next season, help is on hand.
Just hop on a plane and you could find yourself on location, arguing about whether Jaime Lannister is intrinsically evil or just misunderstood beneath the brooding walls of Winterfell.
For a few heady months, the wildly successful TV series was filmed on location in Malta, before a sorry incident involving internationally important habitats, Mepa’s arguably lackadaisical approach to environmental protection and a lot of Dothraki sand put paid to that.
But the epic span of the storyline required a variety of different landscapes anyway, with filming branching out to Northern Ireland, Croatia, Iceland and Morocco. Here’s where to holiday in the footsteps of Tyrion, Daenaerys and a host of other morally challenged characters.
Northern Ireland
A lot of the indoor filming for the series was done in the Paint Hall Studios in Belfast, so Northern Ireland was the natural choice for the outdoor shots.
Nearby Castle Ward became Winterfell’s courtyard. You can tour the castle and imagine the fateful meeting of the Starks, Lannisters and King Robert.
The castle is part of a demesne landscape (meaning a swathe of feudal land that belonged to the lord of the manor) and still has a farmyard with horses, pigs, hens, a laundry, sawmill and a working corn mill.
These days, there’s also an exotic, sunken garden, an adventure playground with a mega slide and a dress-up centre for kids.
The tearoom really ought to serve up the stuffed capons and haunches of venison of King Robert’s fictional court, but a glance at the menu shows more prosaic offerings of scones with jam and cream. Visit www.nationaltrust.org.uk for more details.
At the wall, Castle Black, home to the Night’s Watch, was actually built in a disused quarry at Magheramorne and details included a working winch cage. There’s not much to see now at the quarry, as much of the footage was CGI or filmed in the studio, so you might be better following the characters as they sally North of the Wall, to Tollymore Forest Park in County Down, in the foothills of the Mourne Mountains.
Tollymore is a strange place, full of quirky follies, such as a barn disguised as a church or giant pine cones on top of gateposts. On screen, the nearby snowy forest is rapidly blooded in a brutal attack scene of dead wildlings and wights. Theon’s doomed bid for freedom also takes place here.
It’s fitting that a sometimes stark and windswept Northern Ireland should also provide the backdrop of Theon’s Greyjoy’s return to his family in Pyke in the Iron Islands.
Ballintoy, close to the Giant’s Causeway in County Antrim, will give you a taste of the hard, Iron-born landscape.
And to explore the scenes of season two, visit the Dark Hedges of Gracehill House, also in County Antrim. The Hedge is actually a mile-long avenue of 150 beech trees planted in the 18th century and forms a spooky backdrop for Arya Stark’s flight from King’s Landing.
The Tourist Board has not been slow to get on the Game of Thrones bandwagon. Visit its website for a downloadable itinerary and further details of filming locations: http://interact.discovernorthernireland.com/gotexhibition .
Getting there: Easyjet flies direct to Belfast every Tuesday and Saturday.
Croatia
Croatia was the winner when Game of Thrones dropped Malta as a location and scenes of Kings Landing were switched from Mdina to the medieval walled city of Dubrovnik.
The Hotel Bellevue is cashing in on the series’ popularity by offering a Game of Thrones experience. For €259, you’ll get accommodation with a sea view, a King’s breakfast, a bottle of wine to make merry, transfers and a city card for the museums. Visit www.adriaticluxuryhotels.com.
You can also take a walking tour with www.viator.com to get to know King’s Landing better; in the Lovrijenac Fortress, you’ll feel the lingering evil exploits of King Joffrey.
The guide will give you a little insider gossip on the series as part of their spiel (€55 per person).
Just outside the Croatian city is Lokrum Island, home of a former monastery. It’s been used for scenes that happen in Qarth near the Jade Sea, a city visited by Danaerys Targaryan in season two. There’s no accommodation on the island but tourist boats arrive from the city every 30 minutes.
Getting there: There are no direct, scheduled flights from Malta to Dubrovnik. Flights via Vienna (Air Malta/Austrian Airlines) and Rome Fiumicino (Air Malta/Croatia Airlines) have connection times of two to three hours.
Morocco
Morocco has long been a popular spot for film-makers and is home to Atlas Studios, which makes the most of the country’s epic landscapes.
When Daenerys and Khal Drogo married in Pentos, the wedding was shot in Ouarzazate and the same location featured as the slave city of Yunkai.
To experience it for yourself, try Epic Morocco’s 10-day Forts and Kasbahs Tour (www.epicmorocco.co.uk/tailor-made/forts-and-kasbahs/). The tour incorporates a visit to Marrakech, a tour of the Ouarzazate film studios and the Ait Benhaddou Unesco site as well as a day’s hiking through the sublime landscapes and villages of the High Atlas Mountains.
Accommodation is in con-verted kasbahs (citadels) and riad guesthouses. Prices start at around €900 per person.
Getting there: There are no direct, scheduled flights from Malta to Marrakech.
Flights via Barcelona (Vueling) and Girona (Ryanair) are available for €100-€200 with same-day connections.
Scotland
The 14th-century Doune Castle is already a filmstar, having appeared in Monty Python and the Holy Grail as Castle Anthrax (fans stage regular re-enactments there). It now doubles as Winterfell too, having been used in the pilot with Sean Bean before filming moved to Northern Ireland.
The castle is located just outside Stirling and can be accessed from Glasgow or Edinburgh airport.
Getting there: Fly to Glasgow with Air Malta or Edinburgh with Ryanair.
Iceland
Nowhere says Frostfangs quite like wintery Iceland. The country’s calving glaciers (ones that end in a sudden cliff) are the ideal setting for filming of John Snow’s forayinto north of the wall. The Svínafellsjökull glacier in Skaftafell featured heavily and there was further filming near Smyrlabjörg and Vík on Höfðabrekkuheið. One of the production team described the scenery as “shatteringly beautiful and barren and brutal”.
Iceland Travel (www.icelandtravel.is) is offering a five-day tour of the spectacular geological features that form the backdrop to Game of Thrones. They’ll take you to visit the Land beyond the Wall with a local guide who helped the film crew.
Highlights include visiting the areas where Night’s Watch men, including Samwell Tarly and Lord Commander Mormont, are attacked by the White Walkers and a look into the cave where Jon Snow and Ygritte have their first romantic encounter.
They’ll also tell you how the ancient Vikings, like the Wildlings, lived and survived in their harsh environment.
Prices, including flights from the UK and accommodation, start at €800 per person (tour also available without flights).
Getting there: As mentioned above, the Iceland Travel tours can be booked with flights from the UK (London Heathrow, London Gatwick, Manchester and Glasgow).
All these cities can be reached directly from Malta with a variety of airlines.