Yesterday we took a rest day, staying in the hotel. Matt and Caroline both had caught colds, so we took a day off from sightseeing. It was rainy pretty much all day, so just as well. But today we hit the tourist path again, starting early to travel to the opposite coast of Ireland to see the Cliffs of Moher and Galway on the Atlantic side.
We had tickets for a day tour with Wild Rover Tours, whose bus departed at 7 a.m. from a street that was a few minute’s walk away. So we picked up cold, bagged breakfasts ordered last night from the hotel restaurant, ate in our rooms, and then we were off to the tour pick-up spot. Our bus wasn’t full for this tour and we had a very energetic, fun guide named Yvonne describing the sights, which made for an enjoyable experience.
About 2 hours into the drive west, we stopped at a rest stop near a location where President and Michelle Obama had visited on their trip to Ireland, near where his 3rd great grandfather had been born. So the new, spacious, well-equipped rest stop had been named in the President’s honor and even featured a life-sized cutout of them.
We continued driving on after the stop, exiting the freeway after a while and getting on the Wild Atlantic Way (the name of a coastal drive) that led through two quaint coastal towns and brought us to the Cliffs of Moher. We arrived about 10:45 a.m. and it was blowing like everything and occasionally raining. We decided to eat an early lunch in the restaurant at the visitor’s center first in order to avoid crowds later and that turned out to be a good strategy. Our table in the restaurant had a view of the path to the cliffs and we could see that we had avoided a short downpour that happened while we ate.
After lunch we walked out to view the cliffs. It was blowing quite hard for the entire time, which evidently is the normal condition at the cliffs. It was blowing so hard that it blew a small waterfall upward onto the path, getting us all wet, as seen in this great video that Gary shot.
During our 2 hours at the cliffs, we also walked through the interpretive displays at the visitor center, which were about the geology, animals and natural history of the area. Then we got back on the bus and drove for another hour along the rugged and beautiful coastal countryside to the city of Galway. I wanted to take photos of the pretty area we drove through, but being in a moving bus driving through rain showers wasn’t conducive to picture taking.
In Galway, we got off the bus and our guide led us along the pedestrian streets in the tourist area for about 15 minutes, telling us a little about the city, before letting us explore on our own for the next 2 hours. There were lots of shops, pubs and restaurants in the area. We walked down to the waterfront where there was a wall and arch remaining from the mid-1500s city wall, which is named the Spanish Arch.
We got coffee, did a little shopping, and then stopped to buy “traditional Irish chips” (French fries) from a shop that only sold those, to which you could add a variety of sauces, salts, and/or Parmesan cheese. Those were our snacks before reboarding the bus at 4:45.
The bus ride back to Dublin took 3 hours along a different freeway, including one short rest stop along the way. We were dropped off on the opposite side of the River Liffey from our hotel and walked back to our rooms. Back in Dublin, it was sunny and breezy. It had been a long but very good sightseeing day.
Lori's Travels 