West Ire 2: Inis Oirr, Cliffs of Moher, Galway

Another early start Saturday morning. After a hostel breakfast we all piled onto the bus to bring us down to the docks. We waited for about ten minutes or so then boarded a small boat that would take us to Inis Oirr, one of the Aran Islands. We lucked out and had amazing weather the whole day through yet again.

The Aran Islands are three islands located at the mouth of the Galway Bayoff. The largest island: Inishmore is also referred to as Aranmore. The second-largest is Inishmaan and the smallest and most Eastern is Inis Oirr, or Inisheer in English. Our head RA Adam Clark is actually from Inishmore and we would have visited his island but the ferry is just too long for us. Heading over to the island felt just like going to the Vineyard for the day only going to a much smaller island, on a much smaller boat, and taking a shorter time to get there.

Everyone told us the best thing to do was to rent a bike for ten euro and ride around the island. See the shipwreck, the castle, the lighthouse, and just have fun. We also lucked out because their was an inter-island Gaelic Football tournament and Adam would be in it so when we found ourselves just hanging around waiting fro the boat at the end of the day, we could catch part of a game.

So I like most of the others rented a bike and made my way around the island. I joined a group of people and together we went to a graveyard with a sunken church, a castle you could actually climb around in and then made our way to the other side of the island. It was such an amazing day biking around  on these dirt roads, in between farms, and stone walls, looking out at the ocean, seeing the lighthouse, and the water just twinkling around us in the sunlight. We made our way to the end of the road and walked out on the rocks as far as we could to enjoy the water splashing up on the rocks. One of my classmates wanted to pull a little mermaid letting the water splash onto him as it crashed onto a rock but he thought it might be smarter to do it standing up, and my golly it was a wonderful thing to get a picture of.

looking up out of the sunken church

former castle

The farms on the island

National Geographic Status

Shane and the water

Cow and a lighthouse

Head RA Adam playing Gaelic Football

Upon reaching the castle again on the way back we stopped at the cute little cafe for lunch. I had the best two glasses of milk, that I swear came from a cow just up the road, and friends of mine said they had amazing lunches as well. The woman running the places was so kind, and we were all very impressed that she literally makes everything herself from scratch. We then made our way back across the island, got an ice cream, returned our bikes, caught about 15 minutes of Adam's game and then it was time again to catch the boat back to Doolin.

The boat ride back by far was way better, and not just because I was at the very bow, the waves were slightly bigger, or that a group us broke out into "I'll Make A Man Out of You' from Mulan, no it was the Cliffs again. We got to go up pretty much right to the bottom of the Cliffs of Moher and really take in their beauty once again.

I had stated in past posts about how one scene from Game of Thrones was shot here, but I was mistaken that scene is somewhere we will be visiting in Northern Ireland in three weeks. The Cliffs of Moher though was where a scene from Harry Potter was shot and I can understand why. The way the water breaks along the cliffs, the shades of the water, and just their sheer magnificence, I don't know how you could not want to shoot a movie scene there.

I probably could have stayed on that boat next to the cliffs for hour instead of just minutes, but alas we had to get back to shore and back on the bus and make our way to Galway.

I have always loved the idea of Galway, partly from the PS I Love You movie, partly from the song Galway Girl, and from the fact that people were comparing it to Burlington: a small college town, not really a city. When we got there I really liked how modern our Hostel was (Snoozles Hostel) and I was looking forward to checking out some of the places on the map we were given. A group of girls and I made our way to GBC Galway's famous cafe for affordable eating that was opened in the 50's. Then continued on to the pedestrian road, and looked into many closed shop stores. We had dinner outside (just like on Church Street) at Fat Freddy's, all of us getting quite Italianesque food-again sorry mom. We then decided to check out Taffes Bar because we were told it was a very authentic Pub with traditional Irish Music. We found the place to be nice, but we felt very young for the place, way too crowded and the music wasn't too great-just three guys playing a violin, flute, guitars and singing. We decided to find another pub and by golly we did.

We were walking by An Pucan when we heard the Wagon Wheel song being played, we decided it was fate and we had to go inside. An Pucan was much more our taste, many friendly people sitting around talking, dancing to the 6 piece band, and just more open space. The band was great and even though they played more American music, it was just so much better being sung with Irish accents. I don't think I will ever hear Elvis or the Dixie Chicks sung better. Anyway after about six songs or so we left because we knew we had another early start the next day and should probably get some sleep.

I was really looking forward to Galway but I wasn't too impressed with it (I didn't take any pictures there...). I would like to go back on day and actually experience the town when it is active, see the shops, more people during the day, and what else there is to do, see the water more even. I am able to catch a bus to Galway for ten euro and I may find myself doing that one weekend just to get a full Galway experience. For now though I am enjoying Dublin.