Galway
After a good nights sleep, Brian and I got up bright and early. We showered and packed our suitcases and then headed down for breakfast. This morning Brian caught the first of our little laughable moments. The itinerary for the day had been posted by the elevators sometime the night before. It listed as bags out in hallway so the porters could take them down to the buses at 8am. Breakfast was being served from 0700-1000, and the buses were leaving at 0900. Brian looked at it and said, I hope nobody is planning on eating after the buses leave! J
We got down to the dinning room a bit after 0700 and had a nice meal. Hardly anybody else was up yet, so we pretty much had the place to ourselves. As we finished the others started to show up to eat. We went back up to our room. Made a last minute check to make sure we had not forgot to pack anything, then put our bags out in the hallway as instructed. We then went out for a quick walk around
At the appointed time, we all loaded up on the bus and headed out towards the Cliffs of Mohare. Keep in mind it the weather keeps changing. From cold and windy, to cold and rainy, to cold and windy and raining…well you get the picture. We drove through the countryside as our driver kept us entertained. He is quite the character. After a bit we arrived at the Cliffs. It kept changing from party cloudy to rainy. We started in the visitors center and looked around. We then decided, “Well we are here so we should at least make an attempt to walk out to the cliffs”. So we did. It was an adventure and we both loved it. Windy, a bit of rain but not to bad…but we still got drenched. The wind was so strong coming off the ocean, it was whipping water vapor up off the ocean and driving it up the 700 ft cliffs where then came together in a chimney like effect. When we got to the top we could see O’Briens watch tower a bit further on. But to get to it we would have to cross one of the areas where the water was being driven up from the ocean. What the hell, in for a penny, in for a pound (or should that be euro now). We made it to the tower, and yes we had taken quite a shower as we passed thru the spray. We stayed at the tower for a bit, in the company of a few other brave souls from our bus. I took a couple of pictures, but the wind was so strong it was hard to stand still to do so. Then it was time to return to the visitors center to try to warm up and dry off a bit before we got back on the bus.
From the cliffs we head back out across the country side for our lunch stop. We were going to a place called Doolin. This what many consider to be the birth place of the traditional irish music phenom. The hotel/restaurant we stopped at was quaint and had a pretty good traditional stew. Well I guess were every you get stew it is traditional for that town. It was different from the stew I had last year in
One of the downfalls of a bus tour is you are at the mercy of the tour guide and bus driver. You go where they want to take you, in the time frame they want to take you to it. While our final stop of the day was to be Galway they wanted to take us to a marble factory outside of
As expected, we did not get into town and to our hotel until about 5pm. We received our room keys, but when we got to the room we both realized as soon as we walked in that somebody had been smoking in it. That just would not do. I am already coughing from the damp weather and the cigarette smoke would pretty much assure I would have further problems. So we went back down to the main desk and requested a room change. They were able to accommodate us and we were quickly in another room. It is pretty nice. I will be writing hotel reviews later.
