The Causeway Coast and Glens from Belfast

Editor's note

One night in the Glens of Antrim. Glenarm claims to be the oldest town in Ulster, with a 12th-century charter. Walk through the restored Barbican Gate to the castle built in 1636, still the McDonnell family home, and see the walled garden, open from May to September. Then walk up into the glen behind the village, the first of the nine. At Cushendun, Clough Williams-Ellis designed the village in the style of a Cornish one. Look across the North Channel to the Mull of Kintyre, find the caves used in Game of Thrones, and walk up to the Carnanmore passage cairn four miles north.

Editor's note

Two nights at Ballycastle. Give one day to Rathlin: the ferry crosses six nautical miles to Church Bay, and the West Light is four and a half miles further on, built into the cliff face upside down. From the RSPB platforms there, watch puffins, guillemots and razorbills on the stacks. Puffins are there from late April to early August, and the seabird centre closes for the winter. Look for Irish hares on the trails. Back on the mainland, walk the Dark Hedges on the Bregagh Road, closed to cars since October 2017, and go down to Ballintoy harbour, which played Lordsport in Game of Thrones.

Editor's note

Two nights on the Causeway Coast. Walk the Giant's Causeway at low tide, when the whole pavement of basalt columns is exposed. The Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge hangs 30 metres above the sea and is crossed one at a time. Call at Dunluce Castle on its sea stack between the Causeway and Portrush. Old Bushmills dates its licence to 1608, when James I granted one to Sir Thomas Phillips, and the company that built the present distillery was formed in 1784. The tour runs through the mash house, the copper pot stills and the warehouses, and ends with a tasting.

Editor's note

One night near Mussenden Temple, the last before the crossing home. Frederick Hervey, the Earl Bishop of Derry, built the temple on the cliff edge above Downhill Strand in 1785 and kept his library in it. A carriage could once drive right round it; the Atlantic has since eaten the cliff in towards the walls. Walk the ruins of Downhill House behind it, then go down onto the strand and look back up. In the Roe Valley south-west of Limavady, a gorge path leads past the first hydroelectric station in Northern Ireland, from 1896, and flax drying fields with watch towers built to keep the linen from being stolen.