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Dublin: Giant's Causeway & Glens of Antrim Day Tour
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From €149 per person
This tour starts differently from most - you meet your group and tour representatives at Dublin’s Connolly Station at 6:30 AM for the 6:50 AM Enterprise Service to Belfast. Once the train arrives in Belfast, the day on the Antrim coast begins.
The route takes you along the famous Antrim Coast Road, crossing through the scenic Glens of Antrim before reaching the Giant’s Causeway. You’ll also get a photo stop at the medieval ruins of Dunluce Castle and a visit to the Bushmills Distillery, one of the oldest licensed whiskey distilleries in the world. After the day’s stops, you return to Belfast to board the train back to Dublin, arriving at Connolly Station at approximately 10:15 PM.
Bushmills is the village you pass through on the way to the Causeway, and it’s worth knowing its rhythm before you arrive. The distillery tour is the headline stop - the licence dates to 1608 and the current company to 1784 - but it sells out well before noon on summer days. If your guide has flexibility, an earlier distillery slot is better than a later one.
The Giant’s Causeway itself is free to walk on - the stones don’t cost anything. The National Trust visitor centre does have an entry charge, but you don’t need it to reach the hexagonal columns. Walk in from the Bushmills side along the railway path if there’s an option: it’s two miles, takes about 45 minutes, and brings you in from the quieter end.
Dunluce Castle sits on a basalt stack about five minutes’ drive west of Bushmills. The photo stop here is worth slowing down for - archaeologists in 2011 found a ‘lost town’ beside the castle, a planned settlement from 1608 with indoor toilets, abandoned after the Battle of the Boyne. What you’re looking at from the road is a lot more than a ruin.
The Glens of Antrim are nine distinct valleys running down to the Antrim Coast Road from the plateau above. The drive through them is the journey, not just a way to get from Belfast to the Causeway. If you’re a window-seat person on a coach, this is the day to claim one.
Your day starts and ends in Belfast at Grand Central Station, two hours from Dublin on the Enterprise. If you’re making a trip of it, the city rewards at least a night: the Crown Liquor Saloon on Great Victoria Street is owned by the National Trust and run as a working Victorian pub, and Kelly’s Cellars on Bank Street has been pouring since 1720. Cave Hill - the cliff above the city that is said to have inspired the giant in Gulliver’s Travels - is a two-hour walk from Belfast Castle with the whole city below you. The Titanic Quarter, built on the slipway where the Titanic launched in 1911, is a fifteen-minute walk from the city centre.