On a quest to find the country's most glorious roads, Annunciata Elwes explores Northern Ireland's Causeway Coastal Route.
It is possible to power through all nine mythical glens of Antrim in one day, whizzing along the 195 miles between Belfast and Derry.
But why would you rush when there’s scenery like this to enjoy on one of Britain’s most scenic drives?
You’d miss so much — from the volcano frozen in time that is Giant’s Causeway, with its 40,000 basalt columns, the moody castles of Dunseverick (on a wave-bashed peninsula visited by St Patrick), Dunluce, Glenarm and Carrickfergus, through the brooding Dark Hedges that served as Westeros’s Kingsroad in Game of Thrones.
The rope bridge of your dreams? Or your nightmares? Carrick a Rede, County Antrim
Then there are the cliff caves and suspension bridges at the Edwardian Gobbins, overlooking an Irish Sea where dolphins dance, Torr Head for views of Scotland and 18th-century Mussenden Temple on a 120ft clifftop above the Atlantic.
Take a weekend or, better yet, a week.
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