As a Northerner, I was reluctant to visit King’s Landing.

Westeros

Made it to King's Landing safely. They like Northerners, right? pic.twitter.com/HobVFJCAfw



— Daniel Krupa (@Krupa) January 24, 2015

Being Winter, I opted for a robust jacket and scarf, instead of Shae's silk-based number.

Uncharacteristic clouds above King's Landing. Well, Winter is meant to be coming.

"Heed my words, my queen. The House of the Undying Ones was not made for mortal men." pic.twitter.com/CwrzelVB57



— Daniel Krupa (@Krupa) January 25, 2015

Game of Thrones Season 5 Locations 3 IMAGES

Game of Thrones - Red Keep Pictures 4 IMAGES

No cars were hurt by the use of CGI.

"Come with me and take this city!" - Stannis Baratheon, The Battle of Blackwater Bay pic.twitter.com/gyHJbj2v6C



— Daniel Krupa (@Krupa) January 25, 2015

This cat does not care for lemon cakes.

Prince Oberyn wrote that poem by this bin. pic.twitter.com/aPswv9XXXg



— Daniel Krupa (@Krupa) January 25, 2015

Thankfully Dubrovnik, the fictional capital's real-life double, was quite different – welcoming, peaceful, and entirely without a dynastic suspicion of my ancestors.Over the course of three days, I visited the continents of both Westeros and Essos, gazed upon the spot where Joffrey was wed (it’s really a car park), walked through the caverns where Daenerys chained her dragons, and took in several of the locations used for Season 5; I learned how close the real-life history of Dubrovnik mirrors that found in George R.R. Martin's fantasy epic; I also ate small donuts, a local delicacy in Croatia (this has no connection to Game of Thrones ).Don’t worry, I’m not going to bore you senseless with my holiday snaps. Below is a brief summary of that trip; I’ve smuggled in some pictures here and there to compare reality with fiction, but hopefully the map above and some geo-tagged tweets will help you retrace my steps should you ever find yourself on the Kingsroad.I say the Kingsroad, but in truth it was the 7:20am flight from London Heathrow to Dubrovnik (via Zagreb, but you can catch a direct flight outside of winter).Flights (via Croatian Airlines) from London are roughly £159.00 to Dubrovnik and £123.00 to Split.Making Game of Thrones is a herculean international effort, with production spanning countries as diverse as Northern Ireland, Iceland, Morocco, and more recently Spain. Croatia is used primarily to represent King's Landing, the capital of Westeros, though more recently it has also been used to represent various locales in Essos.Dubrovnik might now be a popular tourist destination but it once served as the capital of the Republic of Ragusa, an influential medieval republic famed throughout the Mediterranean for trading, wealth, and skilled diplomacy. Its city leaders were skilled at playing outside factions against each other, ensuring Dubrovnik remained independent, strong, and prosperous.Today it's a UNESCO World Heritage site, due to it being one of the best preserved walled cities around.And those ancient walls, along with its forbidding city gates and labyrinthine streets, make it the ideal setting for Westeros' capital. The show makes good use of visual effects to heighten the reality – jumbling up the houses, erecting huge structures like the Red Keep, repositioning islands in the distance – but gazing down from Dubrovnik's city walls, it still feels like you're in King's Landing.The best way to experience it, though, is to take the three-hour walking tour . Your guide takes you to all the key locations used in the show, such as The House of the Undying, and retells the history of Westeros and its feuding families.I also got to see some of the locations used in Season 5. No details were forthcoming on what exactly took place where, but I was told the staircase and the church below would feature in a pivotal upcoming scene.One of the first places you visit on the walking tour is Dubrovnik Castle, a historic battlement which provides many of the interiors for the Red Keep.Walking around the real-life sets is genuinely uncanny – you recognise the walkways, the views, but there's also a feeling of strangeness which can be traced back to the show's brilliant and subtle use of CGI. It's used to remove all religious iconography from the city, relocating it from our reality to the world of Westeros.Maybe the best example of this was setting the lavish wedding of Joffrey Baratheon beside a car park.Definitely the most impressive sight during the walking tour of Dubrovnik's walled city was this stunning view of Blackwater Bay.It provided the backdrop for the most spectacular episode of Season 2, when Stannis Baratheon made an attempt to storm King's Landing. The city stood strong, thanks to the leadership of Tyrion and a cunning reserve of Wildfire.A short ride from the walled city is Dubrovnik's Arboretum Trsteno, the oldest garden of its type dating back to 1492.It's a picturesque venue, where secrets and Machiavellian tactics also flourish. In fact, there's some real-life truth to how the location is used in the show; Dubrovnik's leaders would use the gardens as a venue for important political discussion far from the prying ears and eyes of the city.That's it for Westeros, but Croatia is increasingly being used for scenes which take place in Essos. More on the next page.And if you're stuck for somewhere to stay, you can do no better than the Hotel Excelsior , which is the very same hotel in which the cast stay while filming.