Galway, Ireland

After leaving Adare, on Monday morning, we drove to the Cliffs of Moher. The cliffs were on the way to Galway and since they are one of the biggest tourist stops in Ireland, mostly because of how amazing and beautiful the cliffs are, we had to stop.

On the drive up we drove past this golf course that was seriously amazing. I wish I had taken a photo, but I didn't. I seriously thought that the people playing were standing at a top of a hill hitting golf balls for fun. I didn't realize that a golf course could be so hilly. Sean thought it was funny, that I didn't realize they were playing golf, and told me that's how golf courses are over in Ireland. The one at Adare definitely didn't look like this one.

We arrived at the cliffs and we started walking toward them, and a guy told us it was going to rain in about 5 minutes. It didn't even get to 2 minutes and it was down-pouring. The only real time it rained hard. Since we had just gotten there we went into the gift shop, looked around and within 20 minutes all the rain had passed and we could go and enjoy the view.

A view of the Cliffs of Moher

One of the cows that wanted some attention

These cows liked to chill and enjoy the view

You could pay money and go to the top of the tower across the way, but we enjoyed our view just fine from the ground level.

There was this one area where you weren't supposed to go, because there wasn't a railing. You can see Sean didn't follow the rules and we stepped over into the "Don't go Beyond this Point" zone. The path was well traveled and we obviously weren't the only ones breaking the rules. I was pretty nervous though, so we didn't go too far.

We spent quite a bit of time at the cliffs and decided to go to our next stop, Aillwee Cave and the Burren Birds Offrey Center. This was also along the way.

We stopped at the farm house first and checked out all of the free samples of fudge and cheese. We ended up getting a pound of assorted fudge, after trying every flavor first.

We then went to the Bird Center, because we were told that they were going to fly the birds soon, and since it wasn't done often this would be something to stay and watch. We went into the gift shop while we waited and there was a baby owl, only 1 week old. They let you touch it and since the birds were all kept in captivity they wanted him to get used to humans.

Touching the owl, he was too cute!

They had quite a large selection of birds and we walked around and visited quite a few. Ireland is known for having one of the lowest populations of birds due to hunting and they are trying to educate the public about the different birds.

I liked this orange eyed owl

Once the flying was about to start they took this large bird out. Of course I didn't write down what type of bird he was but he was huge, and his eyesight was amazing. The guy told us he could see a rabbit moving at the top of the mountain miles away. They normally let them sit out for a while so they can chill. For whatever reason, he wasn't out very long and it was time to let him fly.

They asked for volunteers, and of course I was more than happy to participate

Then they took out this small bird, that could reach really fast speeds when diving

We enjoyed watching the show for an hour or so and then decided to check out the caves. We drove up the road to the caves and enjoyed the view before going into the cave.

These caves were discovered in the 1940's but kept a secret until the 1970's. The guy that discovered them, had discovered them by accident when he chased his dog into them. He didn't think to tell anyone of them until 30 years later.

Walking in the caves

The caves themselves are made of limestone and are all nature made.

At the end of the cave

We eventually got back on the road so we could get to Galway. The roads were very windy and I felt pretty sick as we drove through the turns, but didn't actually get sick.

We got to our hotel and when they gave us our room we had a double bed and a twin. We asked for a different room and they ended up giving us a king suite with a jacuzzi, score! We ate a quick dinner in the hotel bar and then a much needed nap. You see, usually I nap during car rides, but Sean asked that I not nap while in Ireland, because it was hard enough for him to drive on the other side of the road, and I had to be extra eyes, to watch the GPS and to help with traffic.

After our nap we walked on the boardwalk for about an hour or so. There were a ton of people out and it was nice to walk around and talk.

A view from the boardwalk

We noticed that there were a lot of casinos and young kids dressed to go out. I'm not sure where they were going, since we didn't see any sort of "night" clubs but they looked like they were ready!

We eventually went back to the hotel and Sean had a beer and I had a nice warm cup of tea. We watched some cricket on TV in the bar and tried to decide what we were going to do the next few days.

Tuesday morning we went to breakfast and drank lots of tea. Of course we drank lots of tea, while in Ireland we would drink at least a pot of tea each morning, 2-4 cups each!

We decided to drive to Leenaun because I had done some research online and saw they had a p;ace called The Sheep and Wool Centre that looked neat. There were a lot of rolling hills on the drive out. So beautiful. I have a few of my favorite photos below.

There were also quite a few sheep. These somehow got out of their fenced in area and were trying to get back in.

We eventually arrived at the Sheep and Wool Centre and it was more of a tourist shop. We could pay for a tour, which consisted of a 20 minute video and an informational session with the cashier's sister. We decided not to pay for the tour. It was okay though. We each bought a sweater and a few other things.

The view from the Sheep and Wool Centre

After leaving Leenaun and we drove to Kylemore Abbey, which was an old boarding school. The building itself is amazing and we were excited to tour it.

Kylemore Abbey

Once we paid and got into the building itself, we were informed, by signs, that we could only access a few rooms. The rest was a private residence for some nuns. We were pretty bummed, but luckily there were some other things to do, such as the Gothic Church Mausoleum and the Gardens.

The Gothic Church

The church itself was beautiful. We had nice weather, and although we heard a lot of people complaining of the bugs, I wasn't bothered by them at all.

In fact I had a fun time skipping around and enjoying myself. The only problem was Sean wouldn't join in with my fun, oh well, his lose.

Skipping around

A walk back from the church

After checking out the gardens we got back in our car and drove to Clifden for a late lunch. We had some chowder and a sandwich and Sean had a beer. This bar didn't have a large selection, so he ended up getting a Budweiser. The interesting thing Sean noticed was the label which mentioned that the beer was brewed by Guinness with permission from Anheiser-Busch. I guess the shipping costs from the US were too much for their European Cliental.

The label from Sean's beer

The waitress kept talking about this Czech beer so she convinced Sean to try it. Sean didn't think it was that great. I ended up just having some tea, because it was pretty chilly out. We then asked the waitress what there was to do in Clifdon. She said they have restaurants and told us we should go back to Galway. We ended up walking around in a few shops and then drove back to Galway.

On the drive back we took the scenic coastal road. It was really pretty, and although the roads were really narrow I did enjoy the drive. Some of the roads looked like they were meant for one car, and when we went around the corners I wasn't sure if we were going to get hit if another car was coming. We survived. Along the drive we also saw sheep, roosters, dogs and horses.

We stopped to take a picture of these sheep, but when I tried getting closer they just ran away from me.

We got back to the hotel and Sean noticed a 5K that was going on and it was finishing at the hotel next to ours. I was so bummed we missed it. I thought it would have been fun to participate in another race. Oh well, as Sean said, he couldn't sign me up for every race in Ireland. Plus by this point in the trip with all the food, beer and desserts I definitely wouldn't have run very fast.

We parked the car and went for a walk and got a small dinner at a restaurant/bar. We were looking for a place to go, and Sean said we should turn around and go to this one place that was "hopping." We got there and there were probably a total of 5 people including the waitstaff. It made me laugh.

After dinner we went back to the hotel and called it an early night.

Wednesday morning it was breakfast in the hotel and then a drive into Galway city. We drove around a little and then parked. At first the town didn't look too exciting, but it was a cute college town with roads you can't drive on, kind of like church street in Vermont. Once we were out of the car and we were walking around it was much better.

We walked past Murphy's bar and had to take a picture. Here is Sean showing off his new sweater.

It looked fun, until you saw the sign that allowed no Hen parties or Stag parties, that's bachelorette and bachelor parties for you US folks.


We went to a few shops and grabbed lunch at a grocery store: a sandwich, chips and 2 beers. They had outside seating so we were going to eat out front. Apparently we couldn't drink the beers out front as I had originally thought, so we had to save them for later.

Streets in downtown Galway

View of the town

I loved the colors of Ireland, and Galway was such a nice area, with people walking around, performers on the street.

After lunch and walking around we went to the Corrib Cruise where we were going to take a boat cruise. There was an entire bus tour of French Canadiens that were getting on the boat with us and they spoke French with each other the entire time.

It was a little rainy at first but then it got sunny.

The first half of the cruise was in French, since there were so many French speaking passengers. I had fun making up what they were talking about. Since we couldn't understand we just relaxed and I rested my eyes for awhile. We also drank our beers, which probably wasn't allowed considering they had a cash bar, but no one seemed to notice that we pulled them out of our bag.


The second half of the tour was in English so we were able to understand a little more. I didn't take notes on what this place was so apparently I wasn't listening very well. I do however remember that they played the Celine Dion Titantic song, just like the other cruise ride we went on. Seriously, this just isn't right!


After the cruise we drove around and through the local University. We found free parking by a church and we were really excited because there hadn't been any free parking when we looked earlier. We decided to check out the church and it was beautiful.

Inside Free Parking Church, not sure of the name

We ended up going to a nice Italian place for dinner. I had aa half crafe of wine and pumpkin ravioli and a delicious zuchinni, ham & goat cheese appetizer. I can't remember what Sean had.

Enjoying a cup of coffee after dinner

We went back to the mall after dinner to look for chocolate. They were closed. We were on a mission to find a dessert. We went back to the grocery store that we had eaten lunch at and I got a pink & white nougot and Sean had some orange flavored chocolate.

We listened to some street performers while we enjoyed our sweet treats and then went into a bar and listened to some live music.

We talked to an older couple from Scottland that were visiting Ireland for their first time and we got them to take our picutre.


We drove back to our hotel and enjoyed a drink in the hotel bar.

Thursday morning we had breakfast in the hotel and then had to get on the road to head back to Dublin, since our trip was ending the next day.

We drove a little more than halfway and stopped at the Tullamore Dew Whiskey distillary. I know I posted before about not going to the Jameson distillary because we don't enjoy whiskey, but we thought it might be fun. The tour itself was self guided and it was informative.

There was one part were we got to do a bee dance, and I actually got Sean to do it. It was an interactive model talking about honey and all that good stuff that they use in some of their whiskey.

After the tour they had free tasting in the bar. There was no way I was trying it. Sean tried both kinds, one with the honey and one without.

Sean "enjoys" his Tullamore Dew

According to Sean both were awful and he tried to convince me to try. There was no way I was trying that stuff!

We got back on the road and wanted to check out an aqaurium south of Dublin. It was pretty empty, but we had fun looking at all the fish, sharks and reading the trivia questions along the way. We saw a sign that mentioned a movie about sharks starting at 6 that night. We asked about it, and they weren't planning on playing it since no one had asked, but they had no problem showing it. We thought it was a 20 minute video, it turns out it was about 2 hours! It was really good, but we only stayed for probably 30 minutes or so. We couldn't see staying two hours to watch a movie on our last night of our honeymoon.

We got back on the road and were lucky that we didn't hit too much traffic. We avoided the major highway because we were told that it was a toll road that you had to pay in advance. We didn't want to risk getting a ticket from our rental car company for failure to follow the correct rules. It seemed too complicated for us.

Eventually we got to our hotel a little north of the Dublin airport. Our flight flew out around noon on Friday so we had to get to the airport around 9 or so.

We checked in and they had two rooms reserved for us, one for Sean and one for me. What a way to end a honeymoon. We explained to the woman that we were on our honeymoon and didn't need two rooms. She was confused, but eventually figured it out. We were told we had the double bed again, like the last hotel, so we asked for a larger bed and were told none were available. Meanwhile, there were about 2 cars in the parking lot, the hotel was basically empty.

We got to our room and we had a double bed and a single bed. We decided to snuggle up next to each other in the single bed like old times.

We showered and then went down and relaxed in the hotel bar. We enjoyed dinner, beer and then a delicious brownie sundae dessert!

Friday morning we packed up early, dropped the car off at the rental place and then walked into the airport. We checked our bags in the e-ticket area and noticed on our tickets that the flight was scheduled to leave close to 5 pm, not 12 pm like it was originally scheduled.

It turns out they had rescheduled the flight, and we would have found out early (Wednesday) had we checked our e-mail. Oh well. Nothing like spending the day in the airport after a two week vacation.

Luckily we got a $7 food voucher so that held us over for about 5 minutes. We hung out most of the day in the airport bar, and reminished about our vacation.

The trip was busy but it went by way too quickly. We can't wait to go back.