Ireland: Galway and the Cliffs of Moher

Finally, I get to talk about Galway.

After my not so great time in Dublin, but better time in the suburbs, I didn't really know what to expect from Galway. I had heard good things, but who knows?
Well, after spending several days there, I was ready to move in. In short, Galway was one of my favorite places that I've been (and I'm in Prague right now).
What greeted us in Galway was a city full of culture, life, and travelers just like us. In fact, the city prided itself on being an amalgamation with all these different histories mixed together.

A seemingly endless rotation of buskers lined the street day and night. Ancient ruins hid around every corner. I got to hear 3 amazing bands perform at the Róisín Dubh while Ashlen won a dance off against a dude while surrounded by the crowd as everyone, including the band, went wild. We heard a Scottish storyteller named Rab tell the enthralling local story of the evil Mayor Lynch who hung his own son from their house window in the name of justice (look up the story, it's fascinating and likely true), and a Scottish story about a deadly sheep.

Every bit of the city burst with culture, history, nostalgia, and pride. Even just one day there was enough to see that. But Galway also gave us our first cathedral...

A beautiful university with free geology and zoology museums that showcased a collection of glass replicas of dissected organisms formerly used as study tools before the internet...

Gorgeous sunsets...

And of course, a chance to see...

THE CLIFFS OF INSANITY...I mean, Moher

The Cliffs of Moher should look familiar to anyone who has seen The Princess Bride. And if you haven't, well, go do that and get some joy in your life.
Galway also happened to give us our first hostel, the Savoy (which we highly recommend). Advertised up front at the desk were day tours to the cliffs, and with some help from the attendant we picked one that included some fun side features as well as more time at the cliffs themselves. The next morning, we ambled over to the bus station and hopped on.

Our first stop was Dunguaire Castle, an ancient tollbooth/castle that we had all of ten minutes to look at. Literally. It was a nice view from the bridge looking toward the castle, and some old ruins and thatched houses across the street were nice to look at, but the castle itself wasn't much.

There were actually some far more interesting things we saw only in passing. A dolmen (top pic) and "fairy ring" (bottom pic) both around FOUR THOUSAND YEARS OLD. It turned out these things are practically everywhere on the west coast, but these were literally some of the oldest things we had ever seen. They had been built by prehistoric humans as graves and housing respectively, but had since gained reverence as where faeries live. Our guide was wonderful in laying out the history and legends as to why this had taken place, before stopping us at...

The Poulnabrone Dolmen. Once again we only had about fifteen minutes here, which was a shame. Some enterprising Irishman had set up a chair, a donation box, and his dog and played the tin whistle for the busloads of tourists dropping by, but you know what? I loved it. Stepping up to the stones themselves felt like what I imagined seeing Stonehenge would feel like. There was a certain sense of magic there, and a deep respect for that magic (despite the busloads of tourists). Ancient humans had buried their dead underneath this massive set of limestone slabs, and the reverence of the place lingered and was almost tangible.

Next up was a cathedral in the tiny town of Kilfenora. Built around the twelfth century, it's mainly known for its highly ornate and varied high crosses, but what mostly caught my eye were the various faces carved sticking out above doorways, and carved style coffins in a style I had never seen before (and wouldn't see again until finding an Anglo-Saxon tomb in England).

We stopped for lunch in the picturesque town of Doolin...but this was the only picture I got because despite having an hour there, our food order was misplaced at the pub we all went to and we ended up spending most of our time waiting for our meal. Couldn't really blame the poor staff as they were trying to deal with one bus right after the other, but it still slightly soured the experience. Until of course...

THE CLIFFS OF...MOHER. The winds were strong but the sun was shining bright on what the driver assured us was one of the only thirty days or so without rain that Ireland gets each year.
We had two choices before us from where the bus stopped. Either go to the left along the oft photographed cliffs, or go to the right and get what the driver said was the better view (at least that we could get in the 90 minutes we had there). We took the driver's advice and went right.

On top of the first hill an old watchtower greeted us, as well as our first real look down. It's practically impossible to impress upon you, dear reader, the pure magnitude of that drop. To stand and look at a piece of nature that is several skyscrapers tall...you can do nothing but drop your jaw in awe and try not to completely freak out as the wind tries to push you towards the edge.
There's also nothing that can quite prepare you for this view:

This is from Ashlen's turn, after I had done it. I lasted about twenty seconds and suffered a mild panic attack, my first in years. You look down and there is nothing beneath you. You know in your head that there's no way the shelf you're on will fall, but animal instinct takes over and makes you feel like the ground is shifting and you're headed straight over the edge. I've never had a large fear of heights, but this height brought it on full force at about four times what I've ever experienced. Definitely not for the faint of heart or those with a severe fear of heights, unless you really feel like pushing yourself.

Further on the path narrowed and made it clear that beyond that point, you're off the most beaten path. We had enough time so we ventured a little further and found this curious shrine, dedicated to friends who had travelled to the future. It was situated around a corner in a little nook, which thankfully gave me the time I needed to decompress in Ashlen's arms and recover my breath from the panic attack. Curious about the shrine's history, and thankful for the respite from the heights, we made our way back to the bus.

The last stop was our driver's personal favorite, a stretch of popcorn limestone with a beautiful view of the water and the cliffs in the distance. He even took us a little further up than where most of the buses stopped and just took a couple quiet minutes to breathe the air and enjoy the view. It was a nice touch.

Well, that and the tiny yet fully grown horses we spotted on the way back.

In Summation
Galway treated us very well. It's near the top of my list of places I want to go back to. Great music, great archeology, great culture. Plus, it's fairly easy to get to the Cliffs of Moher from there, which shouldn't be missed (panic attack or no).
But for now, onward we go to Killarney, the Dingle peninsula, and the Ring of Kerry!

To be continued...

Ireland: The Dublin "Suburbs" of Raheney, Howth, Malahide, and Bray

Pro tip, when in Dublin get the unlimited 3 day (or more) tourist bus pass. You get unlimited access to buses and trains for a very large area, including each town/suburb of Dublin you're about to see.
With that out of the way...

Raheney
For some peculiar reason I have no pictures of Raheney. So you'll just have to trust me when I say it's a lovely peaceful town with a nice little park, a couple local bars, a cheap supermarket, and your standard old church and ruin-like graveyard. Pretty much your typical suburb in every way. But it was our base for our time in Dublin and suited us just fine for that purpose. Away from the bustle of the city, but not so far away as to make it difficult to get to other places from there. I highly recommend it if you're looking for a nice spot to get away but still get a taste of Irish culture and hospitality.

Howth
This little harbour town first attracted us for its castle. "A castle only a few train stops away?!" I thought, "We have to go!" Little did I know that this would only be the first of a hundred castles we saw in Ireland, but that's for another post!

An interesting thing happened on the way there, however. As we were approaching the castle there was a path up to the left that seemed to lead somewhere. Curiosity drove us along the way, only to discover a beautiful church.

Seemingly alone, we walked along, trying the locked door, checking out the grounds and finding something that resembled ashes in the grass. Curiosity sated, we started to head on to the castle...when we spotted an old man. He was sitting on a bench by the entrance, a bench I had sworn was empty not moments earlier. He waved. We walked over and he introduced himself as Jim (though his accent made it sound like Gem), a man who came there quite often (likely for years) to sit and think and write long letters to his loving daughter (though not to his son, who didn't seem to care for him). He asked where we were from, as he had met a surprising amount of people from all over the world who got detoured from the castle and ended up at the church. When we told him we were Americans, he brightened up.
It turned out that he and his parents had actually been prisoners of war in WW2, and that they had been rescued by Americans when he was around 5. One of his fondest memories was this American soldier giving him some lifesavers candy. He had actually made his way over to America at one point, and describing seeing lifesavers in the shop, he brightened even more.
We left him to continue his pages-long letter to his daughter, and given the surreality of the experience I had to seriously question whether we had just met a sweet old man, or a cheerful ghost, forever writing letters to his daughter and greeting those who strayed from the castle's path.

Our first castle and beautiful church down, we made our way to the city harbor, an area we enjoyed so much we came back a second time to see it all.

An entire row of restaurants were lined up alongside a docking area for ships, often offering fresh fish from the boat anchored mere meters away. A lighthouse kept watch on the other side of the harbor, while a giant wall offered a spectacular view of the ocean and an island in the distance.

A closed off area told of a local market boasting 20 different shops on the weekend (which we went back for without having cash, meaning a good deal of it we only got to look longingly at). But the real highlight came when we spotted an odd and very old-looking building sticking out from behind some residences on a hill.
We followed the path along the main road, coming to a gate that looked as if it should lead up to the ruins but was very closed. We tried to open it in vain, when suddenly from behind us came a voice...
"YOU'VE GOT TO KEEP GOING UP THE MAIN ROAD!"
We turn to see a man shouting at us from his car...which was stopped in the middle of the street...and traffic was behind him.
"...What?" we responded, puzzled by this whole situation.
"Go up the main road and stay right and you'll get there!" he yelled to us.
"Oh...okay! Thank you!"
"No problem! Have a lovely day!"
"Th...thanks!"
...And he drove on. But possibly the weirdest part of the whole situation wasn't that we had just been given directions by a random man from his car in the middle of traffic. The weirdest part was that nobody honked. Every person behind this man was totally accepting that he was stopped in front of them, and that eventually he'd get going again.
So with new direction we walked on up a slight hill, walking along streets that just screamed small European town as they wrapped around and eventually landed us here...

St. Mary's Abbey. Quite the fascinating ruin, the inside was completely barred off though plaques told of its long history. Some graves older than the country popped out at us and kept us in wonder at this old ruin. Though, the most interesting thing there wasn't actually the ruin itself.

A wild fox greeted us, initially lying down on top of a grave. It appeared to be in a bad way, limping a bit and looking rather lanky. Taking pity, Ashlen communed with this incredibly intelligent animal, offering it some oat cake we had left over from Iceland and bits of water. Incredibly grateful, it accepted each gift, though was always wary to stay out of arms reach. Within no time it was hopping, playing with various bits of plastic left behind from other passerbys like they were toys. Quite the incredible experience! We would later learn that foxes are quite the nuisance on Ireland, killing chickens and showing up everywhere, though this was the only fox we would encounter.

We explored around the rest of town for a bit, finding a lovely local church with a busker playing accordion outside. An abandoned shop front by the library told of a place that was designed to be lively and bustling, almost looking as though it was still in development even though the dilapidated sign hanging overhead told that it had long since closed down. We made our way up another hill to discover Martello Tower, an old watchtower from the 18th century that had since been repurposed and turned into an old radio museum. We arrived just as it closed, but got one more good look at the harbor.

There was still some time left in the day, so we wandered over to...

Malahide

Our only reason for going here was the castle, and having just been through the semi-magical and naturalistic Howth I was excited to see what another castle might bring.  Sad to say...it was almost like a slap in the face.

But before I get to that, I wanted to point out yet another instance of Irish hospitality.

We got off the train and were desperate for some coffee and a restroom before everything closed and so made our way into a nearby community center attached to yet another beautiful church. We made some brief conversation with our barista, which ended up turning into a long and lovely conversation with a man who was a traveling musician that used to be in a popular europop band and was finally back in Ireland after a years-long stint elsewhere. Unfortunately they had to close, and we had to make our way to the castle, but it was just one more thing that made me fall in love with Ireland and its people.

The long road to the castle from the tram station was promising. Lots of old walls with different stonework that made you wonder about its transition through the years. A beautiful conservatory peeked out from behind the trees. Another old old church/graveyard greeted us. But as you can see, there were also some worrisome signs that perhaps this place was a bit more...touristy. Giant signs pointed to bicycle rentals, shops, and the castle itself. But turning around from the church, I couldn't quite believe my eyes...

That, my friends, is a mall inside a ~17th-18th century building. I walked in, unsure of what I was looking at, and was rather appalled. It was extremely modern, and completely threw me. Ashlen and I would later talk about how the one word that seemed to describe Ireland is "nostalgia". All old things were treated as fairly sacred, even if there were hundreds of them. Yet here was a direct and blaring anachronism that showed not an ounce of nostalgia nor care. It was quite simply jarring.

The castle itself looked nice, but of course carried a fairly high price tag to enter, and we had arrived too late to get a ticket anyway. It seemed only appropriate after getting to the front door and having a bite to eat next to the lovely open grounds...that it began to rain.

We left and didn't return.

Bray

Situated at the southernmost end of the tram line, Bray is well worth your time to go out and visit.

Even though we were there well past tourist season, Bray still stood out as a vibrant seaside town with a massively long boardwalk along the beach including an aquarium, several restaurants, bed and breakfasts, and this:

There was also a path up to "Bray Head", the local mountain/large hill and well that seemed like a fun time so we decided to head up.  Unfortunately, the signage wasn't very clear and we ended up heading along a cliffside walk that connected Bray to Greystones, the next town over. We kept turning a corner along this well-used and highly populated path, looking down at the abandoned railway below, thinking the path up the massive hillside would show up...but it never did. However there was an old ruin...

Lord Meath, the former landowner, had built this lodge as a tollbooth and visitors used to be charged a penny for entry (except one day a week when he closed it and used the grounds for himself). It also is now a landmark for a cave at the water's edge that used to be essentially a pirate cove. Various banned goods from France like brandy, gin, and silks were hauled into the cave which was halfway between two major ports, hidden from sight, and reputedly had a connecting path up to the tollbooth. However, the cave was destroyed when the railway was built, thus leaving only this ruin as its memory.

As it became clear we had taken a wrong turn somewhere, we trudged back the way we came and eventually stumbled on the path up the mountain. What started off as a seemingly well-paved and structured journey up, quickly gave way to the truth: the only path was an old ravine where a river used to flow.

Thankfully there was still plenty of gorgeous trees and scenery to look at on the way up the tangled twisting and tiring path. My many years of lax physical activity since college hit me full force on the steep climb, but damn it I was determined to beat this thing and reach the top if it killed me.

On these last jagged steps, the path completely disappeared, offering only your own imagination and guile in finding a way up to the very top.  But friends, when I finally got there...well, see for yourself.

It was stunning. In the foreground, Bray. In the background, Dublin bay. Beautiful lush green countryside mixed with farms and cities and all dappled in sunlight. The tough journey up made it even more worth it. The names written on the giant cross told of years of travelers to this place, as well as the continuing stream of people willing to make the journey to the top for this view.  As we descended, the line of people heading up spoke of it as a wonderful place to watch the sunset, but it was too long for us to wait.

Instead we spent our fading light chasing the low tide and finding so many metamorphic rocks and minerals it's hard to fathom. Gems that would've been snapped up in an instant back home were here in abundance. If you're a rock hoarder, GO HERE.

In Summation
If you find yourself in/around Dublin, 1) get out of there, 2) go to Howth or Bray.  Both are relatively quick tram rides out from the city with plenty to explore and see. In Howth, make sure to hit up the church by the castle and say hi to Jim (if he appears...), the weekend market, the Dog House Tea Room for some fun ambiance, and the harbor itself. In Bray, walk along the boardwalk, collect rocks, journey up Bray Head, and even take the long walk into Greystones if you have time.

Otherwise...head to the west coast, which I'll cover next time!

To be continued...