Walk the East Strand towards the White Rocks and Dunluce

Work out which of the two beaches is sheltered today and use that one

Spend an hour in the arcades on the harbour front

Eat chips looking out at the Skerries offshore

Portrush sits on a peninsula with a beach on either side of it, which is unusual and very useful — whatever direction the wind is coming from, one of them is sheltered. The East Strand runs for miles towards Dunluce and the Causeway with dunes behind it, the harbour and the arcades are on the neck of the peninsula, and the whole place is a Victorian seaside resort that never stopped being one.

Portrush: The East Strand and the Arcades

Take the distillery tour through the mash house and the still house

See the copper pot stills and find out what triple distillation does to the spirit

Go into the warehouses and smell the angels' share coming off the casks

Taste the range side by side and find the one you would actually buy

The label says 1608, and what that date actually refers to is a royal licence granted by James I to Sir Thomas Phillips, a local landowner, to distil whiskey in the area. The company that built the present distillery was formed in 1784. Either way it has a claim to being the oldest licensed distillery in the world, it still works, and the tour takes you through mashing, triple distillation in copper pot stills, and the warehouses, finishing with a tasting.

Old Bushmills: A Licence Granted in 1608

Walk the Giant's Causeway at low tide, when the full basalt pavement is exposed

Cross the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge to the fishing island, about 30 metres above the rocks

Tour Old Bushmills Distillery, the working distillery whose labels carry the 1608 licence date

Park at the Hedges car park and walk the Bregagh Road at dawn — it has been closed to traffic since 2017 to protect the roots

Stop at Dunluce Castle on its basalt outcrop, reached by a bridge, between the Causeway and Portrush

Two days on the Antrim coast. The Giant's Causeway is 40,000 interlocking basalt columns left by a lava flow cooling and cracking, and it is best at low tide when the full pavement is exposed. Carrick-a-Rede is a rope bridge slung about 30 metres above the rocks to a fishing island, crossed a few at a time. Bushmills prints 1608 on its labels, the date of a royal licence to distil in the district, and the distillery still works. And the Dark Hedges — a beech avenue planted around 1775 — is worth walking at dawn; the Bregagh Road has been closed to traffic since October 2017 to keep vehicles off the trees' roots.

Causeway Coastal Route Weekend

Walk out to Mussenden Temple on the cliff edge above Downhill Strand

See how close the cliff edge comes to the walls, and where the 1997 stabilisation work holds it back

Walk the ruins of Downhill House, the Earl Bishop's mansion behind the temple

Go down onto Downhill Strand and look back up at the temple from the beach

Frederick Hervey, 4th Earl of Bristol and Church of Ireland Bishop of Derry from 1768 to 1803, built a small circular temple on the cliff edge above Downhill Strand in 1785 and kept his library in it. It was once possible to drive a carriage the whole way around the building. It is not now — the Atlantic ate the cliff in so close that the National Trust had to stabilise it in 1997 to stop the building being lost, which is the only reason it is still standing there.

Mussenden Temple: A Library on the Edge of a Cliff

Walk the Dark Hedges along the Bregagh Road

Find out why the Bregagh Road was closed to cars in October 2017

Go down to Ballintoy harbour, Lordsport in the second season

Find Larrybane, Renly's camp, beside the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge

The Dark Hedges, a beech avenue planted around 1775 by James Stuart of Gracehill House on the Bregagh Road between Armoy and Stranocum, played the King's Road in Game of Thrones. The road has been closed to traffic since October 2017 to protect the roots, and storms keep taking trees: two in Storm Gertrude in January 2016, two more in Storm Éowyn in January 2025. Twelve kilometres north, Ballintoy harbour was Lordsport on the Isle of Pyke in the second season, filmed in August 2011, and just east of it Larrybane, the old quarry beside the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge, was Renly Baratheon's camp, where Brienne of Tarth first beat Loras Tyrell.

The King's Road and the Iron Islands: Game of Thrones on the Causeway Coast

Cycle the coast road from Ballycastle to Portballintrae, about 24 km

Drop down the steep road to Ballintoy harbour

Stop at the Giant's Causeway and walk down to the stones

Ride back to Ballycastle by an inland road instead of retracing the coast

About 24 kilometres of the Causeway Coastal Route between Ballycastle and Portballintrae, with Ballintoy about 8 km in, and on a bike you stop where you want: down the narrow, steep road off Knocksaughey hill to Ballintoy harbour, at the Giant's Causeway, and in Bushmills. The road has real climbs on it — this is not a flat coastal spin — and the ride back is better done inland, through the farmland behind the coast, than by retracing the same road.

Ballycastle to Portballintrae by Bike

Drive or walk up to the Binevenagh cliff top and look out over the Magilligan peninsula

Look across Lough Foyle into Donegal from the escarpment

Walk a stretch of Benone Strand below the cliffs

Find the basalt columns in the escarpment face, the same rock as the Causeway

Binevenagh is the north-western end of the Antrim basalt — a great escarpment of cliff standing over the Magilligan peninsula and dominating the skyline above Bellarena, Downhill, Castlerock and Benone. It is both an Area of Special Scientific Interest and the centre of a 138 square kilometre AONB. From the top you look across Lough Foyle into Donegal and out along one of the longest beaches in Ireland.

Binevenagh: The Basalt Escarpment Over Magilligan

Visit both St Patrick's cathedrals and stand on each hill looking at the other

Walk the Georgian Mall and the streets of pale limestone around it

Find where tradition places Patrick's church of 445

See the Armagh Robinson Library, founded by the archbishop who also founded the observatory

Tradition says Patrick founded his main church in Armagh in 445, and it became the head church of Ireland. The consequence is still on the skyline: the city has two cathedrals, both dedicated to St Patrick, on two hills facing each other — one Church of Ireland, one Roman Catholic — and both archbishops hold the title Primate of All Ireland. Armagh is the ecclesiastical capital of the whole island and a Georgian city built in pale local limestone.

Armagh: Two Cathedrals, Both Called St Patrick's

Climb to McArt's Fort on the summit and find the ditch that defended it

Stand on Napoleon's Nose and look down over the whole city and Belfast Lough

Find the caves cut into the basalt face that give the hill its name

Walk up through the grounds of Belfast Castle on the lower slopes

Cave Hill rises 368 metres straight behind Belfast, basalt cliffs and caves along its face, and the cliff at the end of it is called Napoleon's Nose because from the city it looks like a profile lying on its back. On the highest point are the remains of McArt's Fort, an ancient promontory fort defended by the cliff on one side and a ditch on the other. The whole of Belfast, the lough and the Down coast open up beneath you.