Day 8 – Inishmore to Galway/Salthill

John was up at 7:30 this morning and spent some quiet time sitting on the back porch looking out over Galway Bay while typing up trip notes.  Breakfast was delicious and Padraig picked us up at 10:45 and delivered us to the docks.

The ferry back to Doolin stopped to pick up additional passengers at the other two islands…so the return trip took a bit longer than the trip out.  It was pretty windy and a bit chilly - John watched a movie and Erin read a book to pass the time.
 

Back on the mainland (can you call it mainland if it’s an island?) we headed for the Cliffs of Mohr.
The place was crawling with tourists but the views were awesome.
To truly see all aspects of the cliffs, you have to walk past the big sign saying don’t go past this point – so we did…as did everybody else.

 

Stopped at Dunguaire Castle (c. 1520) which was very nice but had very limited access to the inside.  Looking for anything interesting, we trekked around the overgrown pathway around the castle (and about 7 tourists followed us!)…but we didn’t uncover any secrets or find any hidden entrances.
     

On the way through the Burren (the geographical area), we stumbled across St. Colman’s Abbey.  Great old ruin!

Picture of the Burren are hard to get, the
place is just immense.  We stopped at any tower or old church ruin we could see, the cemetery’s are beautiful, and sometimes sad, it seems that the Irish either live to their 80’s+ or die young…sometimes as infants, or in their 20’s.



One interesting thing is that there are usually very old graves mixed in with the very new…most of the cemetery’s are still in use even if the church is in ruins.
Stopped for lunch in Burren (the town) and Erin got the best clams she’s had in a long time. 

From there, it was up and around to Galway and into Salthill (a section of town) where we checked into the Lynburgh B&B (nothing special about this place…more like a hotel than a B&B, but it is near the bay, and very close to the pub/shop area) and then headed into town.

Galway dates back to around 1124 and was yet another site of castles, forts, invasions, and the like.  Starting in the 1500s, it enjoyed a thriving international trade business and in the middle ages was the principal port for trade with Spain and France.  It is currently the fastest growing city in Ireland and is very metropolitan with manufacturing, tourism, and retail filling the coffers.

We drove around Galway to see what there was to see, which wasn’t much, so we headed back to the shopping/pub area near the B&B.

First stop was Taaffes Pub for some pints and a nice traditional Irish trio.
 		 Erin befriended Sam – an expatriate Brit who was currently working as a dish washer at a pizza place and who in a matter of about 10 minutes talked us tired.  We understood about ¾’s of what he said…but he was entertaining. 
Ran into a local couple who were a lot of fun to talk to and then met a Boston couple who were in country backpacking for a month.


Next stop was Tig Coili where we were treated to a fantastic jam trio featuring a guy playing something that looked kinda like a lute, an amazing fiddle player, and a kid on the squeeze box that was mind numbingly good.  Some of their sets went on so long they were drenched in sweat, but still grinning, by the end.

We took a picture out front as we left and the bartender jumped in to mug.

We had to take pictures of the cute signs on the restrooms…and of the kid wearing the politically incorrect t-shirt (much to the delight of his friends).

Onto the King’s Head Pub where we discovered Fred and James playing cover tunes.  A couple of pints had us ready to head for bed…but not before the whole place erupted in a singalong to Monty Python’s “Always Look On The Bright Side of Life”.

As we were heading back to the car, we walked past…and into…the Charcoal Grill (a Turkish kebab joint) for some take away (lamb and chicken doners – a doner is kinda like a gyro).

Back at the B&B we devoured what must now be considered the absolute best late night munchie food.

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