Galway Area

---

Galway ended up being our home base for our time in Ireland. The original plan was to spend most of the first five days in Galway and then have a little more than a week to travel. However the cancellation of the wedding (the reason for the timing of the trip) caused us to re-arrange the trip to be able to be around and fit Fran's friends' schedules which had just had a life altering event. This included two day trips to Connemara for hiking. One was a typical combination of rain, mist and a little sun and the second was a constant down pour and a poorly marked trail. The second turned into a lunch and tea (or anything hot) at the only local pub around. They didn't mind that we tried to dry out some of our clothes on their heater, or at least I hope they didn't.

We also took a day trip to the Cliffs of Moher in the Burren region. It rained almost all day, but it meant that we basically had the cliffs to ourselves. If you go to the Cliffs of Moher, I encourage you to wander past the developed area. First the developed area has a guard wall that is not friendly to shorter people and the views continue to be amazing as you continue on. Also if you are a fan of the Princess Bride, there are several spots that remind me of the scenes at the Cliffs of Insanity. At the end of the day, the only time it wasn't raining we went to the portal tomb and again had the place to ourselves since it was night.

We had several days in Galway, which included walks by their amazing rivers, enjoying live music in the pubs at night, the street performers and Fran's great friends. It did rain a lot, but it was some consolation to hear Fran's Irish friends talk about how terrible the weather was. Actually at the end of our trip we saw on the news that during our two weeks in Ireland they had about 400% of their average rain fall for that time of year and lots of flooding, so we might have been lucky to have avoided the flooding. So it wasn't the normal Irish rain and cold, it was unusual and it did make it hard to enjoy things when we were constantly cold and wet. But even with the rain and the change of schedule it was a wonderful trip with great people.

---