Below are all the tips and information you need for visiting the Giant’s Causeway this summer. Whether it’s a planned trip or perhaps you have arrived in Belfast and want to know the things to do. The Giants Causeway is Irelands only UNESCO listed attraction and it sure is an area of outstanding natural beauty.
How do you get to the Giants Causeway? We at Giants Causeway Experiences offer privately guided tours. This means that your group will have their own guide! You have a passionate local who can give you real insight into the attractions, the city and the beautiful areas that you travel through on your day trip tour from Belfast.
There are many beautiful locations around the North Antrim Coast area, we have curated a tour built upon the finest locations to give you the fullest experience of Northern Ireland in the short time that you may be here. Locations such as: Dunluce Castle; the 16th century castle still standing and now open to the public to roam and explore. The Carrick-A-Rede Rope Bridge, 30m above sea level you cross the bridge that spans 20m allowing you to walk over the ocean below.
Another stop on this magnificent coastline is Ballintoy Harbour. You visit here as part of our Giants Causeway & North Antrim Coast Tour, Ballintoy Harbour is one of the stops prior to arriving at the Giant’s Causeway. This location is world famously known as the ‘Iron Islands’ from Game of Thrones. The Iron Islands is one of the constituents of the Seven Kingdoms from the Game of Thrones world famous TV series. The islands are home to a fierce group known as the ‘Iron Born’ and are ruled by the House of Greyjoy which makes visiting Ballintoy Harbour all the more exciting.
Ballintoy Harbour is traditionally known as a small fishing harbour down a steep road which passes by the entrance to Larrybane Quarry and Carrick-A-Rede Rope Bridge. We include this stop as it is an ideal tourist location to really get a feel for what rural Ireland is like and how the locals live day-to-day.
The Giants Causeway can be referred to as our only UNESCO recognized World Heritage Site. The location is the beautiful coast line of Antrim situated between rural towns of Ballycastle and Bushmills. For those that take a Giants Causeway Tour, there are breath-taking views all along the coast and specifically the Red Trail at the Giants Causeway attraction itself. Ask your guide about this hidden gem if you aren’t sure!
The Giants Causeway is placed upon 40,000 huge black basalt columns that stick out from the ocean. This is located on the Antrim plateau of Northern Ireland. The formations themselves date back around 50 million years during the tertiary volcanic activity that was very present along our coast lines. Today however, it is one of the most spectacular attractions on the island!
The outstanding area of natural beauty known as the North Antrim Coast is a must see location for anyone visiting Northern Ireland! The natural way that the towns and attractions have flourished to embezzle the rural culture and local delicacies must be experienced for yourself. To the locals it’s a beautiful countryside to our guests it’s the experience of a lifetime. Walking to the cliff edge on the Red Trail at the Giant’s Causeway to crossing the exhilarating Carrick-A-Rede Rope Bridge for the first time!
There are many reasons to visit and even more to return! You can appreciate the nature and science that have co-existed and partnered together to form the magnificent Giant’s Causeway patterns. On our Giants Causeway Tour your guide may tell you the real story though! The story of the legend, Finn McCool!
Second to the Giants Causeway we recommend visiting nearby attractions such as Dunluce Castle, a castle that has not been used since being destroyed in the Irish Rebellion in 1641. Ballintoy Harbour, a beautiful small fishery that sits along the coast and has been preserved to withhold the historic characteristics. To appreciate this coast in full, you must see it in person and we would be thrilled to show you it!
Planning your trip to the Giants Causeway will require some thinking and pre-planning if you are to make it a successful trip! First off, there are three ways that you can get from Belfast to the Giants Causeway; by car, bus or train. The key stops along our tour would not be included in that journey where it would directly bring you to the destination without showing you the natural beauty surrounding it.
For those restricted on time we advise to book a private tour. This means you can arrange with your guide the strict timing requirements and from that we as professional, experienced guides will stick to the requirements all whilst showing you everything you want to see. The Giants Causeway tour from Belfast is arguably the most popular tour and particularly busy in the summer with cruise ship season and holiday makers selling tour packages.
To drive to the Giants Causeway from Belfast the journey lasts roughly 1 hour 20 minutes depending on route and traffic. On our tour we will make stops a long the way to take photos and experience the closer locations whilst building up to the main one!
For those that travel on a budget we would recommend a train from Belfast Central Station to Coleraine. From here you will look for the bus to the Giants Causeway which can be got from outside the train station. Furthermore timetables can be found here at the Translink website. This route will cancel out the Antrim Coast and will stay quite direct on route to the attraction however the public transport journey takes almost 3.5 hours one way meaning there will be at least 7 hours of traveling via public transport!
From Belfast’s Great Victoria Street, take the train to Coleraine. The journey should last about 1 hour 15 minutes. When you arrive in Coleraine, you will take the 170 or 420 bus, both of which run directly to the Giants Causeway.
There are many tour operators to pick from when it comes to picking your tour and many bus companies that also offer a publicly arranged service to the locations. With a private tour, you receive a much more personalized tour, you have your own guide and ultimately are not bound to the strict time restrictions either.
Taxi Tours NI offers day trip tours that are private and personalized. We can customize our tours and ensure that your experience is second to none and just as you expect! A private tour is a great choice for those groups, singles couples that like a more relaxed setting where you are in control of your trip to the Giants Causeway and surrounding areas. Taxi Tours NI would be thrilled to host one of these tours for you.
Your private day trip from Belfast begins with the pick-up. We arrange to collect you at a time and place of your choice and free of charge within Belfast City Centre / Belfast Cruise Terminal. Throughout the journey we stop at a number of locations such as the Carrick-A-Rede Rope Bridge, Ballintoy Harbour, Dunluce Castle, Giant’s Causeway and the Dark Hedges too. All of which are situated along the picturesque Causeway Coast.
The drive through County Antrim is a spectacular drive and a private tour is a great choice for those that do wish to explore a different side to Antrim and Northern Ireland. During your journey you visit the most popular tourist destinations and are exposed to the most beautiful area in Northern Ireland, the North Antrim Coast.
There are some who will try to tell you that the Giant’s Causeway was built by volcanoes, claiming that 63 million years ago, in Ireland, or Northern Ireland at least, was on fire with volcanoes, spewing lava constantly into a chasm that existed between there and Scotland. All of these eruptions kept the magma in the chasm hot. Then a long slow cooling process allowed there to chill and to crack into the crystalline columns that you’d see there today.
These columns extend under the sea all the way from the North-eastern tip of Northern Ireland over to the west coast of Scotland, emerging at Fingals Cave on the Ireland of Staffa, just off the west coast. This is the largest example of its kind in the world and, therefore it’s Northern Ireland’s only heritage site.
Another more interesting story that tells that it was built by giants. A long long time ago, in the North of Ireland lived the giant called Finn McCool. Finn McCool was a kind and peaceful giant. He looked after his land and his people well. He was, however, constantly under threat from a giant from Scotland. That giant’s name was Benandonner; the name itself means ‘mountain of Thunder’. Benandonner wanted to go to Ireland to kill Finn McCool and charge high taxes on the people that lived there.
The only thing stopping him, the expanse of water in between, which was too wide and too deep; and Benandonner could not swim. The two giants, Scottish and Irish, had never met. They had never even seen each other. They lived too far apart, but they had heard each other on a daily basis, yelling, shouting, bawling, coursing, and threatening over the seas.
One morning, Finn McCool, sick, tired, and weary of listening to the threats of Benandonner, roused early and he built a causeway between Northern Ireland and Scotland. Using strange hexagonal columns of rock, he pushed them into the ground and into the seabed with his bare hands. When the causeway was finished, Finn McCool stood up at the Northern Ireland side and called over to Scotland, telling the Scottish giant Benandonner to come and fight for the lands, whenever he could find the courage to do so.
This was the biggest mistake that Finn McCool had ever made in his life for now as an angry Benandonner could be seen striding across this new Giant’s Causeway, Finn McCool seeing him for the first time could now clearly see that the Scottish giant was twice as big as he was. Terrified, he run to his wife and told her to pack all their belongings. ‘Get ready to leave, he said: ‘Leave now and we’ll leave with our lives; wait a moment longer, Benandonner will come and he’ll kill us, both’.
Oonagh, Finn’s wife, was just a bit more cunning and certainly a lot more intelligent than Finn McCool. She poured a large bottle of sleeping potion into Finn McCool’s early morning bottle of beer, and when he drank the beer, he drank the sleeping potion. As he did so, he fell sound asleep, and as he slept, Oonagh stripped him naked and then dressed him again just like a baby; she even placed a baby’s bonnet on his head.
She start manufacturing a giant cradle, and lifting Finn McCool, she placed him in the cradle and stuck his thumb in his mouth… just in time for the door to knock. It was Benandonner. He’d arrived and he was furious. Where was this Irish upstart who had the audacity to challenge him?
Oonagh answered the door and smiling into the ugly Scottish giant’s face, she told him a lie. She told him that her husband, Finn McCool, had forgotten all about the threat. He’d gone off to the fields to work. It must have meant so little to him that it completely slipped his mind and he’d gone away to the fields.
Benandonner was welcomed to come in and wait if he wanted, although he had best probably make his way back to Scotland and save himself for a severe beating. But if he did decide to come in, he had to promise not to make a fuss and wake the sleeping baby.
Of course, Benandonner did not wish to appear to be a coward, so he agreed to come in. But on entering the house he saw the size of the cradle in the corner. Peering inside, he saw Finn McCool lying there with a great big ginger beard; snoring loudly, breath stinking of stale beer.
“Are you telling me that’s the baby?”. “Oh yes, said Oonagh, that’s Finn McCool’s baby alright. Take a seat, I’ll bring you a nice cup of Irish tea”. “There’ll be no need for your hospitality”, said Benandonner, “I’m not waiting here to meet the father of something as gigantic as that”. And with that, he ran away back to Scotland again. But using his club, he smashed up the Giant’s Causeway in between Northern Ireland and Scotland to make sure that this Finn McCool, should he return from work, should not be able to follow him and do him injury.
But Finn McCool, lying sleeping in the cradle, heard the noise of the causeway breaking up, and it woke him up, and in a fit of anger at seeing his handiwork being destroyed he, ed with his bare hand a sod of earth from the north of Ireland and threw it after the retreating Benandonner.
Now, the sod of earth that Finn McCool — ed from the ground left a hole, a hole that can still be seen today even though it’s filled with water. It’s called Lough Neagh. It’s the largest inland waterway in the United Kingdom. Not only bigger than Logh Ness but bigger than Logh Ness and all the lakes of the English Lake District all put together.
But what happened to this sod of earth from the ground by Finn McCool’s hand and thrown after the retreating Benandonner? Well, Finn McCool was still a bit drowsy from the sleeping potion. He was still a bit drunk from the beer, and + all that, Finn McCool in his whole life had never been a great shot with anything. So the sod of earth missed Benandonner and went flying through the air and landed with a mighty splash right in the middle of the Irish Sea, and today we call that The Isle of Man.
You may think that first story was the truth and this of giants was a lie. But let me put it to you like this: Should you visit the north of Ireland and look closely, you will see no volcanoes, but take a look at a map of the United Kingdom and compare the size, the shape, and the area of Lough Neah to the size, the shape and the area of the Isle of Man, and even to the untrained eye, you will have to admit there are certain striking similarities. So I put it to you that what you see there today is no geological formation at all, but truly was built by giants.