Filed under: Galway
I’m writing this Friday evening as we take the coach from Galway to Dublin. Kate had to work today so I was solo all day. I do enjoy a free day of doing whatever I want. I will admit I probably had two hours longer than optimal alone-walking time. (Sidebar: on top of her artist residency, Kate recently started working at a hotel.) It was a gorgeous day – lots of sun and not much rain at all. I got 12 miles of steps in; I’m not even sure if they have 12 miles of street in the City Center. I spent the last 40 minutes pretending to be a guest in the lobby of a very nice (and warm!) hotel lobby. I’m just going to organize photos by idea rather than any sort of linear chronology. Think of it as my Beckettian post of the trip.
Claddagh
Claddagh is the part of Galway city where the River Corrib meets Galway Bay. It used to be a fishing town. (Bonus factoid: I was told several times that the River Corrib is the fastest river flowing in Europe. It’s formidable – and that’s from someone who walks by the Mississippi River often.) Many folks know the Claddagh ring (pictured below). Well, rumor has it that the design came from Richard Joyce in the 17th century. He was apparently kidnapped by pirates and sold as a slave in the West Indies to a goldsmith. He learned the trade of jewelry making and eventually got back to Galway where he created the hand and heart motif.
Street Art
Art is big in Galway. I learned from the Galway City Museum that the poet has historically (going back centuries even) been a well-respected position and Galway was top Cultural City of Europe for many years – until bad weather caused them to cancel so many festivals. (Or so I was told by a local.)
Galway Cathedral
I popped into the big Cathedral because I had a long time. It’s gorgeous inside and every much a working church. Lots of people lighting candles and praying. I love the St Therese of Lisieux corner. (It is my middle name.) Although, I sometimes question the idea that she became a saint by doing many good little things. I like the concept except I don’t they’d make a man a saint for doing many good little things. Maybe it’s the word little. Honestly, it sems like being consistently kind, helpful and generous can be much harder than one big miracle.
Galway City Museum
All of the signage in the museum is prominently in Irish and English. There’s an exhibit on the history of Galway going back to Druidic culture and language. That morphs into a more recent history of Ireland decoupling from the British colonizers. (I won’t say more – you can buy me a beer if you want my broken recollection of the history.) There are also very family/kid friendly exhibits on science and Ireland and giant Galway hooker (the boat) hanging from the walk. But my favorite part was the collection of gig posters from 1979-1982 called This is the Modern World, as a nod to The Jam.
Filed under: Galway
Today we traveled via van through Connemara. We thought we were going by big coach, we went on little van. But apparently, we were the bold hounds who grabbed the only seats with tables in the back – even though we weren’t the first to arrive – so we were very comfy. We heard all about the area enroute from our fantastic tour guide, Padraic Moran from Wild Atlantic Way Day Tours.
Connemara is in Western County Galway, much of it on the Atlantic coast. It’s known for ponies, stones and Irish speakers. The Connemara ponies are smaller than most horses so apparently it’s a good starter for horse riders. Connemara stone, or Connemara marble, which comes from the area. It’s a greenish stone. Connemara is the largest Gaeltacht (Irish speaking area) in Ireland. There are still many Irish speaking schools and many summer schools or other programs where people might go for accelerated, immersive language lessons. The connection to culture is as close as the language.
Much of day was spent checking out the views of the Atlantic Ocean and the Aran Islands and/or the 12 Pins (aka 12 Bens), which is a mountain range. (The Banshees of Inisherin was filmed on the Aran Islands. So, it’s that kind of stark, creepy, yet beautiful world of lots of nature and few people.)
At one point, we seemed to drive through a rainbow. The weather is wild. It can be sunny and storming at the same time. We had a day where the harder rain really held off until we were on the way back to Galway. Otherwise, there was plenty of mist but nothing to hold us back too much. And we had lot of clear skies to see the Islands and mountains when the views were the best. Skyway Drive was a spectacular view of the coast. My palms were sweating the whole way from the heights.
The big stop was Kylemore Abbey. Actually we had a choice between the Abbey of climbing on of the 12 Pins. On a less rainy day or with better clothes, I might have gone with the mountain hike. One out of eight on our tour did.
The Abbey is majestic from the outside. It feels like it’s in a mystic, foggy valley and deep woods. The building was originally a castle built by John Henry. He gave it up after his wife died and kids grew older. It went from hand to hand until someone lost it in poker game. Eventually, the gambler ran into harder times financially and the sisters were able to buy the abbey for a song. It was a boarding school for the elite. I can only imagine the ghost stories they told. It still is an abbey for the Benedictine nuns.
On the way home, we stopped by the famous bridge from the Quiet Man, a movie I should probably watch at some point although John Wayne doesn’t sell it to ne much.
We brought the good weather with us. (Well, me I guess.) It’s been torrential rain for weeks but today was gorgeous. But that I mean it was sunny half the time, lots of cloud and rained (gently) at least 5 minutes every hour but that’s all we needed. I started off walking to Kate’s place. She has a room and studio space at an artists’ residence. It is in idyllic setting. There are cows in the back, chickens to one side and you can see a derelict castle a short distance away. Kate told me that often the rainbows seem to end in their back garden.
Our original plan for the day was to rent a car and drive to nearby sights. I said I’d pay if Kate drove. Unfortunately, we learned that you need to be 25 to be an insured driver in a rental car. So, we had to go to plan b. (In the years I lived here I never once drove. I hate driving at home, can’t imagine it’s more fun here.) We ended up taking a taxi out to Salthill, a beachside town just outside the Galway town. We could see a rain most of the hour or more we were walking. It is a gorgeous area. We also saw a fair number of swimmers – nutty as that seems.
Then we had a little break before we had an amazing dinner at Ruibin. I had chicken liver pate, Kate had something vegan that she really liked and we both had cocktails. It is a lovely place; we’d been there before.
Then we head out to see some Irish music. You’d be amazing how many pubs there are to choose from in Galway. Kate seems pretty well-versed on the topic. So, I was in good hands. We saw some impressive music – with background of sports cheering and discussions.
Filed under: Galway
The first step is the hardest is never truer than the start of an overseas vacation but my New Year’s resolution is to travel more in 2024. (It even rhymes.) And why not start with a visit to Kate in Galway. I left Monday (Jan 1) at 9pm, traveled and now it’s 5am on Wednesday and I’m jetlagged.
The travel was fine. I flew to Amsterdam, and had three hours to wait for my next flight, so I got a little walk in around the airport. The highlight was seeing the Schiphol Clock, it’s giant clock above a main terminal and it looks like a man is standing in this giant airport clock, painting the hands in real time. I feel lucky I even noticed it. According to Atlas Obscura, the painter is actually a 12-hour-long recording, that gives a convincing illusion that a human is standing inside the translucent clock, busy at work as the hands go around. The artists, Maarten Baas, is a well-known Dutch artist and designer that has a series of similar live clock recordings.
I more intentionally sought out Rijksmuseum Schiphol, which seems to be a sample plate of a larger museum in town. A few amazing “Dutch master” sort of paintings. I noticed a big trend in painting women selling fish.
I finally caught the flight to Dublin. I hightailed it to the coaches and got an express bus to Galway. I was feeling very lucky since it did sell out. It was dark and rainy but still nice to be in Ireland. Kate met me at the Galway station with a Diet Coke and croissant in hand. Two of my favorite things in Ireland. What a thoughtful kid. We taxied to the Maldron hotel, which happens to be where she works. Let’s just say, I have a very nice room.
We headed to the city center. It was damp, but not raining. (Very important distinction.) We had a nice dinner – three cheers for seafood chowder -then walked around and checked out a few pubs. There was live music in many of the pubs. Often it’s a choice of tradition or cover music. We went with traditional. There was amazing musicians. The key is finding an intimate place that still has good seating for us.
We capped off the night at a heavy metal/rock pub. See if you can figure out all of the featured artists on the mural. (One mural is on the ceiling, which made it harder to capture.) More adventures today!
Filed under: Galway
Today I took a walk down to Mutton Island and Salthill, which aren’t really very far from where we are and it’s a walk along the sea almost the whole way. It’s very calming. Yesterday, I saw a proposal on my walk. Today, in the very same spot around noon, I saw someone strip down entirely and so for a swim. Can’t wait to what tomorrow brings!
The girls and I had a lovely lunch and shopping at the charity shop. I’m the proud new owner of some cardigans. And we walked around town. Lots of street art to check out.
Kate and I visited the Galway Arts Center. It’s very modern. Aine and I saw a little Irish music.
Filed under: Galway
Aside from the big flight here and back, today was our heaviest travel lift. We flew out of Edinburgh at 8:15, which meant getting picked up before 6am. The flight was late but ended up we were able to catch a coach from the airport in Dublin to Galway within minutes of leaving the airport door. It’s a three-hour bus ride but it was easy and peaceful. We were the first on the bus and so we kind ruled over everyone. (Really that means Aine and I got to sit in front. Kate chose second row maybe hoping to distance herself.)
We landed in Galway. We are staying at a nice place by the canal, not far from the bay between city center and Salthill. Just perfect. We had an easy day walking down the canal to the bay and on the beach. I saw a successful proposal, which is always fun. And we saw the sights around us.
Galway is a young town. I forgot how young until we went to the pub. But it’s fun. It’s not like Dublin. It’s calmer – even in the height of tourist season. Part of the reason we’re here is that Kate may be moving to Galway this fall for an artist residency. She’s going to check the place out tomorrow. I’m very excited for her.
On Saturday we took off for Galway and the Early Music Festival. It was about a two hour drive, which surprised us since in was only 10 miles. Not quite – but nearly. The roads around Galway Bay and the Burren were crazy. I’ve included a picture of us on Corkscrew Hill overlooking Galway Bay. If Kate looks a little green, it’s not your computer screen – she was.
We thought we were late – but thanks to my keen sense of direction in Galway (Anita and Darla would have been impressed with how well I remembered it!) we were there on time for the kid’s play about Noah. Well, my keen sense and the fact that nothing starts on time in Ireland. The play was in the King’s Head Pub, it was free, and we really enjoyed it. Aine and I scored some seats with our new best friend stranger in the front.
The show was very cute – and includes a remark of Summer Night that you can watch below.
After the play, we saw s demonstration of early music (recorders and bagpipes) and some dancing. Aine was quick to jump up and partake. The rest of us were active viewers. The music demonstration was in the Galway Museum. We didn’t see much of it – but we liked what we saw. They have a fun interactive kiosk where you can take a picture of yourself to get added to their digital montage. Also they had a beautiful display of glass balls like water drops hanging from the ceiling.
After the museum we took a walk in the medieval part of the city. We had pizza for lunch in Fat Freddie’s. Patrick duped me into sharing a potato pizza with him – thankfully Aine took pity on me and gave me some of her pizza. Patrick can be evil.
Galway is a great city for walking. The people-watching was great. Lots of people were celebrating with beer – even before noon, which was something I remembered from my trip with Anita and Darla. (That is, I remember observing this – not joining in.) We walked through the market and to Eyre Square and eventually headed back to Lahinch.
We took a longer, yet quicker route home, which included a stop in Coole Pak, near Gort (in honor of WB Yeats). The we got home and enjoyed a mean game of Cluedo while we relaxed.
On Wednesday, we went to the Aran Island – well we boated past the first two and landed at the largest – Inis Mor. We left from Doolin on a very turbulent boat ride. I felt like we were on Deadliest Catch. (I have become a faithful Deadliest Catch watcher here – partially because I don’t always love Irish TV.) The waves got half of the passengers soaked. I think we were all relived to reach the shore.
Once off the boat we found a bus tour of the island. Here’s a quick scoop on the Island. It’s off the west coast. It’s politically in County Galway. It’s a Gaeltacht area, which means people speak Irish. They speak English too – but they seem to speak Irish to each other. Patrick impressed us all by ordering his lunch in Irish.
The island is 9 miles long and 2 miles wide – but I suspect that’s 2 miles at the widest parts. There are about 300 houses and 760 people on the island.
Our tour started with Dun Aengus – “the most spectacular semi circular Celtic stone fort in Europe”. It was super cool. The fort is built on top of the cliff. It’s all built by stone. The road to the fort is built by stone and the big fort is too. It’s 3200 years old. It’s about a half a mile up to the fort – and an amazing view once you get there. It was interesting to think about how people ended up on the Island and what got them to pick such a scary place to build a fort. Well, clearly the scary feature also made it hard for enemies to sneak up on you – but it’s hard to imagine being more afraid of enemies than a huge drop off.
Then we got back on the bus. We drove around the island. We saw cows, a baby donkey, seals from really far away. We also saw people living their day to day life. It’s a far cry from Dublin and I was so glad that we got a chance to visit. The weather could not have been better. I’ve always wanted to visit the Aran Islands.
On the way off the island we visited some roosters that I had spied from the bus. I have to say – roosters are surprisingly beautiful. Their colors are vivid.
Then we got on the boat home and the sailing couldn’t have been smoother. It was like night and day – and a very pleasant surprise.
And the biggest bonus of all – we saw puffins from the boat. Grandpa spied them first. They were flying very close to the water. The others on the boat thought we were crazy making such a fuss about their puffins, but it was cool.
We had a nice dinner in Doolin at Gus O’Connor’s Pub. I don’t know if we were starving or if it was the best fish and chips in Ireland – but it was good. O’Connor’s is a big place to see traditional music – unfortunately we were there at 6:00 and the music starts at 9:00.
Then we had a very scary experience on the way back to Lahinch. We were driving around a very curvy part of the road and a motorcycle popped past us in the other direction. Then we saw a motorcycle pop past us behind him half in our lane. Then we saw a motorcycle not pass us. Thankfully, Dad had stopped the motorcyclist drive right in front of us into a hedge of brambles and nettles. The motorcycle flipped over and the driver flipped over the hedge. We thought he was done for. We were hopping out of the car when the driver climbed back onto the road. He was not a young guy. Thankfully, he was dressed from head to toe in leather – but we could not believe he walked away. He was so lucky that Dad stopped.
Woke up in Galway on Tuesday. The hotel was directly across the street from the Spanish Arch. We took some pictures but what really struck me was the number of men drinking cider by the arch at 10:00 in the morning. I’m pretty sure they would have remarked at our beauty even if they hadn’t been drinking, but it was just something I noted. Actually I noticed quite a few morning drinkers in Galway. I can’t say that I felt like they were all on vacation. And I felt like we were in a lively but not at all risqué neighborhood.
We walked around Galway a little bit. I really liked the city. I had been there before but didn’t remember much. We took a few pictures as you can see below.
Mostly we drove on Tuesday. We covered a ton of ground. We went from Galway down to Dingle. We had lunch in Dingle. We didn’t see the dolphin, sadly. (Rumor has it you can swim with Fungi the dolphin in the Dingle Bay.)
Dingle was nice – but as we headed down to Cork we drove past Inch, which has a beautiful vista. I actually took picture without people in Inch. It was amazing.
Then we headed to Cork. It was interesting to see the different terrain from the day before. The area towards Cork seems so vast in the same way that the Iron Range in Minnesota seems vast to me. Also the natural borders suddenly changed from stone walls to bushes.
The drive into Cork was hellacious. We actually had directions but it didn’t matter much. We saw a Jury’s – got there easily only to find it was the wrong one. Back into the car we ran into a billion one way streets – none of them going the way wanted to go. It took us 40 minutes to get into the hotel and Cork just isn’t that big. We got into the hotel too late for dinner. The garage was full. The Internet wasn’t working. And they didn’t have any decent lager in the pub!
But we got some Chinese take away. I found an Ethernet cord. And the cider was good. So, all’s well that ends well.
Monday Anita, Darla and I set off for Galway. Well, really we set off for the Cliffs of Moher – which are pretty much directly west of Dublin on the other side of the country.
We stopped at Conghlan Castle on the way – really just to take pictures.
Next we stopped by Yeats’ Tower in Gort. WB Yeats was a Nobel Prize winning poet, whose works include The Tower.
We stopped to take a picture of the “natural borders” that Darla loves. Today the natural borders were stone fences between properties.
What’s nice is that the Cliffs are about 5 miles away from Lehinch, where we’ll be staying with my family in May. I think it was about 3.5 hour trip. We stopped in Ennis for lunch – but I’m factoring that in. (I know at least 2 readers want that much info on getting to Lehinch.)
The Cliffs of Moher really are amazing. Picture a coastline and now picture it up 214 meters. You can see the Aran Islands and the Twelve Pins (rolling mountains) of Connemara. The weather was perfect although we could see a bad storm blowing in, which of course we ignored until it hit us. Thankfully we were ready to leave when the hail hit. (Proving that God loves us best.)
After the Cliffs we drove through the Burren to get to Galway. It “is a karst landscape, which is “a landscape shaped by the dissolution of a layer or layers of soluble bedrock, usually carbonate rock such as limestone or dolomite.” So in other words, the Burren rocks.
We stopped on the way to Galway on Galway Bay. Maybe the town was Oranmore; maybe not. The waves were washing water unto the bridge and we saw our favorite sign of the trip, pictures below.
After doing so well with driving and directions we had a horrible time finding the hotel when we got into Galway. Luckily we had my friend Kevin to help us – twice. Then we were happy to have Kevin show us the nightlife of Galway. We had a wonderful Indian meal and visited a couple of pubs. They were all pretty lively. One had a band playing and one had a session going on.
The pubs were actually much nicer than many of the pubs I’ve visited in Dublin – in that they were cozy and had fireplaces, which I love.
Finally we took a picture of Lynch Castle for our cousins in Chicago.
I really enjoyed Galway. I recognized almost nothing from when I visited 15 years ago – but the nightlife still seemed good and there’s an artistic feel to the city.
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