Looking around Belfast, we really didn’t see much to do, especially on a weekend. That’s bad planning on my part.

While Mom was in the shower, I scrolled around the map this morning and spotted something that sounded interesting. Off we went to Castle Ward.

After parking and getting a map of the grounds, I see that there are several filming locations for the HBO series Game Of Thrones.

I had seen many of these pop up on searches for locations to see in Ireland, but none of them seemed important, mostly “X met Y here and then they left” scenes, that had little recognizabilty.

While the castle itself was not filmed, there was the tower Bran climbs in episode 1, a battle field, and “crossroads” where several scenes had taken place.

The tower was actually the original castle, before the family built a newer home in 1763.

There was also another castle on the estate, Audley’s Castle, which stands in for the outside shots of Lord Walder Frey’s house, “The Twins”.

We walked around the gardens a bit and looked through the manor house, before a light rain started, so we went back to town.

There is an indoor street market, with people selling their crafts and cooking up various foods.

We bought some paella and watched the jazz performers, who weren’t that bad, then had some crepes before the market closed.

We leave first thing tomorrow, so we had to head back to pack everything up.

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