We started the morning in Galway, and took a guided bus tour of the city. And ... there wasn't that much interesting to see. In many ways, Galway was the place in Ireland most similar to Seattle, from wider roads, to house design, to urban landscape. This was where we saw most of the strip malls and big box stores. Which probably makes it an easy and convenient place to live, but not much for photographs.
They do have Galway Bay. You know when you're listening to the Pogues' "Fairytale of New York" every Christmas, and the boys from the NYPD Choir start singing "Galway Bay?" (Or, you could just listen to "Galway Bay.") This is the bay they're singing about.
We saw this all over Ireland, harbors that only exist at high tide. So when the tide goes out, the boats get dry-docked. Apparently there are only a few hours a day there where you need to launch or secure your vessel.
Once our tour was over we took a drive through Connemara National Park. This was a windy road twisting through rocky terrain and many, many, many sheep. We did stop at the Park's visitor center for a quick hike.
For starters, they have a playground. Very important.
The park offers many hikes. We opted for a quick one-hour version. And that hour proved to be the best demonstration of Ireland's spastic weather. We started out toward this peak, called Diamond Hill. Note that it's cloudy, but sunny where we were standing.
Ooh! Cow!
As we neared Diamond Hill, the clouds began to break at it got a little sunnier.
Well, the sun didn't last.
Looking west over the village of Letterfrack, founded in 1849 by Quakers from England who wanted to help in the post-famine relief effort.
So now, thirty minutes after we started, we were halfway through our hike, and now it was raining on us. Hard. Like, impossible-to-keep-raindrops-off-the-camera-lens hard.
But at the same time, we could see blue sky just a mile or two away.
So we started our way back.
And we started getting closer to the sun.
Hey, there's Bridget! Hi Bridget!
Wait, where are you going? Hold up!
And soon we were walking under sunny skies again.
And we passed donkeys.
And horsies.
And sheep.
One of which had cool horns.
And then we were done in Connemara National Park. What happened next was complicated. We had originally planned to spend the night in Sligo, two hours north, but a look at our itinerary proved this was stupid, because the next day we were planning on coming right back south. So some quick rearranging of travel plans put us in the itty-bitty village of Renvyle, at the Baywatch Bed & Breakfast. (Thanks to Todd, Cate, and Jenny Reynolds!) This was business was so new to the world that it wasn't listed in our Garmin, so we stopped at the gas station to ask for directions. And the young lady working there knew exactly the spot we were talking about -- her father runs it. Did I mention it was an itty-bitty village?
Now, I realize that the odds of anyone reading this looking for a place to stay in a small village on the west coast are very, very slim, but this has to be said: If you are looking for a place to stay in Renvyle, YOU MUST STAY HERE. This was the cheapest place we stayed, probably half as much as anywhere else. It was the biggest, most comfortable bed we stayed in, with the best pillows. It was one of the bigger bedrooms we had, with one of the better bathrooms. They had the best coffee I had on the whole trip. And this was the view from our room:
That was a fresh-cut flower, and it made our room smell amazing.
Across the street was a beautiful view of the bay.
And finally, they had one of the best breakfasts we had on the trip -- fresh sliced ham from local farms and sharp Irish cheddar cheese, and that was before Tony made me an omelette.
Oh right, Tony. Tony runs the place out of his home. He was the friendliest, most welcoming host I've ever had, and he wanted to hear all about our wedding and our trip, and helped us out with where to go next and how to get around. When we left, we were very sad, and wished we had planned to spend more time in the region, just to hang out with Tony more often.
That night we stopped at the bar for a few drinks (thanks to James & Ileeda!), and moved a couple doors down from some great burgers and fries (thanks to Lance Evers!) That night we watched John Wayne's "The Quiet Man," a completely ridiculous movie that was filmed in the area. It was a wonderfully quiet, relaxing night.
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