Holiday to a Sunny Isle...Ireland

When Tracy's friend Cat let her know that she was going to Ireland for St. Patrick's Day, and Tracy realized it coincided with a shift change that already had her off that weekend, it was a no-brainer. This was just the sort of scenario we had envisioned when we made this move to England. We booked a Ryanair flight to Galway in western Ireland and off we went.

What an easy trip. The normal quantity of research we do before trips was cut down dramatically, the airport trip was pretty easy, the direct flight was easy, and so was clearing customs. There was however, a rather long bus ride from the Shannon airport and Ryanair is a budget airline in every sense...good and bad. Really Ryanair: all the announcements of things you were selling on the plane were too much. Scratch-off lottery tickets...really?

Galway is a cute, atmospheric city full of tourists, college kids, and pubs. But that's fine; we were going for the party after all. Day one was just Tracy and I hanging out in town, and it was easy and no stress.

Originally owned by the executioner of Charles I

Buy some booze, get a free pizza...sounds like college.

River Corrib entering into Galway Bay

Not sure why there were so many swans

Galway Bay

That is not Nessie's humps, she's in Scotland...

Everything was in the Irish language (formerly called Gaelic). Usually there was English too, but not with this pub.

Day two we were off on a day tour to see the Cliffs of Moher and the Burren. Our bus was full of American college kids, mostly girls...felt a little bad for our guide/driver, but he was cool. The Burren is a rock scape of limestone, but has a wide variety of wildflowers, which weren't really out just yet.

Close-up of the rocks...potential nightmare for your ankles

Poulnabrone Dolmen, a 5,500+ year old grave with 30-40 bodies buried in it

Another type of ancient grave called a cairn

On the way we also stopped at a castle and an ancient earthen ring fort.

Artsy

Ring fort...a few families lived here

The earthen mound was worn down.

And we saw a couple very old Celtic crosses.

On to the main event, the Cliffs of Moher. These are 200+ meter high cliffs, about 700 feet, and they can often be obscured by fog and rain...this is Ireland after all. But we had a beautiful day and were so thankful. Actually, our weather was generally really nice for March, in the rainiest city in Ireland...hence the title of this post.

Sorry, but the south-facing pictures were into the late afternoon sun.

Of course, our silly hats had to come out here.

 

So thankful Tracy was there to save my life after I slipped over the edge........

The couple that took this picture then did the same pose. Seems like that happens a lot.

We made a few stops on the way back, some planned, some...not so much.

Rock formation called the Leprechaun's Head (blurry: moving bus)

A stubborn cow

When a car tried to pass it, the cow kept moving back and forth in front to block it from passing.

UP NEXT: St. Paddy's Day and the parade...