Galway

So this weekend the UK had a bank holiday on Monday. This gave me a three day weekend to work with. I decided to take off Friday and Tuesday as well and take a trip down to Galway. This was the overwhelming recommendation from all of my co-workers. A few of whom had at one point seriously looked at living in Galway because the liked it so much. So I got a bus ticket from Belfast to Galway (a 7 hour trip), leaving Friday morning and return Tuesday evening. It might have been the fact that we had a going away party the night before for a girl on my team or may have just been the up and down and side to side of roads, but nevertheless, I had a bad case of motion sickness (which I never usually have problems with) for the first 3 hours or so. It wasn't until we changed busses and I got on a nicer coach that I was able to sleep and forget about my stomach. I finally got into Galway around 6:00. I went to the TI and signed up for my day tours to The Burren and the Cliffs of Moher, Connemara, and the Aran Islands. I went out side to wait for my courtesy ride to my hostel that was suppose to be leaving soon.

While I was waiting I ran into Laura. Laura is in Ireland looking to stay and work here for the summer. She has just graduated from college where she played goalie for four years on her college soccer team. She had been in town for a few days and had been staying at the Sleppzone (which coincidently, I am staying at the last two night I am in Galway) but had to move for the evening since they didn't have a room for her that night. We ended up waiting about an hour for the van and almost didn't get on because of all the people that were waiting. We get to the place where we are staying, Corrib Village, which is just north of the National University of Ireland, Galway. She said that she was going to crash for a while, but I hadn't eaten, so I decided to make the 25-30 minute walk back to the city center to grab a bite to eat and check out the town. I got back to Corrib Village at 11:15 and promptly fell asleep.

The Burren and The Cliffs of Moher

On my first full day I booked a bus tour to The Burren and the Cliffs of Moher. The Burren is some very rough land. There are hills made of limestone that that is hundreds of meters deep. This makes for a very rock country side. Where there are green fields are full of rocks and small boulders. There are some hills that are just solid limestone though. We traveld mostly through what had once been the O' Briens land. We got a little bit of history of each of the three of four O' Brien castles we drove by. Scattered through out the Burren are prehistoric tombs. They are large slabs of rock that are proped off the ground by other slabs that are laid on their sides. These usually mark the palce where someone very important was buried, but since it is prehistoric, we don't know who actually is buried there. Our first stop was the Ailwee Caves. These are just some of the three hundred odd caves in the area. This use to be an ancient bear hibernation den, now it is a tourist attraction. They give a tour of the easily accessible parts of the cave. There are a few nice geological features in it. A few stalagmites and stalagtites. There are also some water falls and spouts in the cave. They very in strength greatly by the amount of rain that has fallen. Hopefully some of the flash photography game out descently.

There were some other stops dunring the tour, but the only other one that is worth any real note are the Cliff of Moher. These were absolutely magnificant. Towering hundreds of feet over the water, just the thought of getting to close to the edge give me the creeps. This did, however, make for some very nice photos. I would have gladly spent three or four hours (and three or four memory cards) taking pictures of the area. As it is, I took, some 70 odd pictures. Let's hope that at least one of them does the scenery justice. This was the most exciting part of the tour, but I am really at a lose of what to say about it. I guess you'll just have to look at the pictures.

I got back from the tour around 6:00. I had decided the day before that I was going to go to the Town Hall Theater to see the play that was running that night. It was called Paddy on the Road. It was about the life and music of Christy Moore. He was an Irish ballad and folk singer during the Troubles in Ireland. It was a one man play, with the actor singing a lot of songs that Moore had sung. It was pretty entertaing. After the play I headed on back to my room to get another good nights sleep.

Connemara and Kylemore Abbey

The second day I spent traveling around Connemara and to the Kylemore Abbey. This day trip wasn't as cool as the Cliffs of Moher. I had some high hopes for the gardens at the Abbey, but they weren't nearly is cool as I was expecting. The only really cool shot that I seen of the Abbey is the one that you find everywhere. It is from the opposite side of the lake up the hill looking down on the Abbey in the midst of lots and lots of green trees. Too bad we aren't able to get in and take our own shots like that. I'll post some pictures from the tour, but other than that, there isn't much else to say about the day. It would have been much different if I had my own car to drive around and stop to take pictures at my choosing.

Aran Islands

So today went from not so good, to amazing. That is how I like my days to go. Well, I would rather them go from good to amazing, but I'll take what I can get. I hopped the bus that was going to take me to the ferry that would then take me to the Aran Islands. Inis Mor to be exact. The bus took and hour and the ferry took another 45 minutes. I didn't realise that is was going to take so long to get there. Anyways, I got there and hired a bike for the day (it turned out to be two hours, but whatever). I started riding up the north coast and unfortunately I was not all that impressed. Just view after view of water and the opposite coast to one side and stone wall after stone wall on the other. Luckily I decided to take a direct shot across the island at the spot where the Ring of Aran is. The Ring of Aran isn't all that spectacular so I kept on going. I eventually made it to the south coast and was greatly suprised when the land ended in a couple hundred foot drop. It was amazing. More awesome pictures. I took 50 odd pictures and then sat down on the cliff and read my book for a little while. It was great. I finally tore myself away and headed back to town. I grabbed a tour bus took my up to Dun Aengus. This was an ancient fort built on the cliff. It is said to be almost three thousand years old. More great shots here of the cliff and the fort. It eventually came time to head back to the pier and catch the ferry back to the main land, and the bus back to Galway. The day started out so bad, but ended so nicely. That makes me happy.