Galway

May 21-25

It is now finally time to move on to a new day. After grabbing a late breakfast in Belfast, we hit the road for the drive to Galway. Since we had seen the beautiful northern coast during our trip to Giant’s Causeway, we cut straight through the island in a significantly less scenic but also significantly faster four hour drive.

We were looking for a town to just sit and relax for a few days and Galway was perfect. As soon as we entered town, I could almost feel the change in pace. This coastal town has a large number of tourists and a large number of university students, but once you get only about half a mile out of town you’ll find locals walking along the Galway Bay and the football fields where men’s leagues play at night and elementary school kids play during their lunches. Let me assure you, the men’s leagues here are insane. They guys were probably late 20’s/early 30’s and they were significant better than anything you’d see in Chicago.

Our first two days in Galway were spent getting into a relaxed mood. We wandered along the bay:

We ate delicious pizza at Dough Bros:

We walked through the picturesque town:

And were sad that we were had missed Ed Fest and wouldn’t be able to Paint the Town Ed:

We had mixed reviews of meat pie at The Pie Maker. I thought the food was great (thanks for the rec, Stacy Lynn)! Michael is a bit weirded out by the idea of meat pie. What’s not to love? Meat and pie together!

Interesting fact: the Claddagh ring was created/designed here in Galway. It is the traditional ring depicting love, loyalty and friendship.

Mostly we just enjoyed the beautiful weather, went for runs and walked all over town. On Wednesday, we took a day trip out to the Cliffs of Moher.

These sea cliffs are in County Clare, about a two hour drive from Galway, and are about 14 kilometers long. At their height, they rise roughly 700 feet above the Atlantic Ocean.

The below is O’Brien’s Tower, near the midpoint of the cliffs, built in 1835 by Sir Cornelius O’Brien. Apparently this tower was built as an observation tower for Victorian tourists that visited the cliffs at the time. However, since we are in Ireland, there is also a legend that says O’Brien built the tower in order to impress women that he was courting. No word on how that worked out for him.

Back in town, we saw a large march in support of repealing the abortion ban. Although there were signs through out town against, it did seem that most people were in support of repealing. A lot of people wandering around with pins stating yes or tá, which is yes in Gaelic. This is in line with how the vote went on Friday, with nearly 2/3 voting to repeal.

On our last full day in Galway we took a boat out to Inishmore, the largest of the Aran Islands in Galway Bay. The roughly 1200 inhabitants of the three islands primarily speak Gaelic, but are also fluent in English. The islands are mainly limestone and although the guy who drove us to the ferry told us that there was farming on the island, it is hard to see how that is possible. Everything is rock. Even the “grassy” areas just have rock all throughout it. But it must be good for cows and it definitely makes for a beautiful bike ride.

So, we rented bikes and rode around the island for about five hours and loved it. It was a great way to see the island.

We stopped and walked up to Dún Aonghasa which has prehistoric forts built on the edge of a 100 meter high cliff. It’s not known when these forts were built although excavations indicate that the first construction goes back to 1100 BC.

That’s right… we looked down. But very carefully!

But more importantly, this is also the site of the last scene from the move Leap Year staring the darling but neurotic Amy Adams.

Here’s that scene in case you want to compare notes. It is, however, the final scene of the movie in case you still need to watch this gem, I don’t want to ruin the ending for you.

We also popped into the Aran Sweater Market were I finally bought a sweater. It was just too soft to turn down…

…especially with free shipping to the US. Someone reading this should get excited for a package from Ireland that will be showing up to their home in the next week or so!!

We ended our day on the island with some sandwiches and sangria at a restaurant near the docks. There were two awesome cats hanging out which is saying a lot because Michael and I don’t like too many cats.