Galway, etc.

The trip to Galway on the West coast was a bit more challenging then we had expected, since we had made a B&B reservation before leaving. About an hour out, we were nearing a small town and the cars became backed up for miles. After about an hour, we discovered that a big Rugby game between two countries was scheduled to be held that night at 7:30.

When we arrived in Galway, later then planned, we had to find a place to eat. The town, like many, is laid out with no plan in mind. Streets in 3 blocks will have 3 different names and will never go straight. Once again we drove around a bit not knowing where we were. We kept circling the town center. Finally when we stopped to get our bearings, we found we were where we wanted to be and found a parking spot nearby.

However, once again, the nicer restaurants were booked. Believe it or not we ended up at Cactus Jacks-yep serving Tex Mex. Good food, but not a decent beer in the house.

I hope to have some new pictures updated in couple of days. This area, including the town of Galway, was pretty much the highlight of our excursions so far. The town is 60,000 and is the "capital" of the region. Saturday morning and early afternoon, we spent walking the medieval streets, where shopping, pubs and restaurants were all intermixed on walking only streets. Saturday includes a year round market of crafts and local vendors on some of the side streets. Was very interesting to see what they were selling. In addition to reminding us of TC's farmers market, they had many local made crafts on sale.

In the evening many of the pubs offer live music, some two sessions at 5 and 9:30 and some just at 9:30. We were able to get back from our Cliffs of Moher trip in time for about an hour of music before we had to go to dinner. I had made a booking at a classy restaurant in the morning and could only get a 6:30 time.

After seeing the town, we headed South through the Burren to the Cliffs of Moher. The Burren is a large area of limestone "land". Many different species of plants from tropic to arctic collect and grow here. Needless to say it was a very rocky area and there were plenty of rock walls here as there seem to be in all of Ireland. If they don't use rock to wall off their small plats, they used hedge, bush and small trees.

We travelled many small roads to get to the cliffs. Quite the scene when we arrived as we were high above the water. The only down side was that it was cloudy and rainy off and on, which uncharacteristically, we have not generally experienced while here. We have had many more sunny days then cloudy/rainy.

The sight of these cliffs is not easy to describe and I encourage anyone interested to explore the pictures. Must be quite the tourist attraction as they had just completed a big new tourist center with restaurant, gift shop and exhibition.

They do have a fishing industry on the coast. One area is noted for its oysters and I was lucky enough to have them for dinner. Nan and I shared a seafood tower, which amounted to a 3 tiered dish of local fish, crab, oysters, etc. Excellent and of course expensive.

Our B&B was in a small town just outside of Galway North called Salthill. Instead of music in pubs, it had a few casinos.

For those of you not having had the pleasure of a Europe B&B, they turn off the heat at night, so those who haven't ever travelled in the off seasons have a treat in store if you ever do.

Sunday we headed North to the area know as Connemara, which is name given to the region probably due to the location of a large national park by that name. Our tour book author, Rick Steves' believes this the most typical Irish countryside in Ireland. We found a site that he failed to identify outside Clifden called Sky Road, which took us high above the coast on a circle route. Very narrow roads, but lots of sheep farming.

We stopped at Letterfrack for a break. Alex had lunch while some had dessert. Guinness for me. Was a quaint place. Next we stopped at Kylemore Abbey, which was a large Castle (see pics) that had been used at one time as a girls school. You must have been a big problem to someone to be sent to this isolated area. We spent some time here as they had a large gift shop with a 25% off the contents.

Good Evening

Joe