A few days ago, you may recall my immense regret of having to use the cold spray of the European Punishment Deodorant upon my warm pits. I think I’ve got a case of Stockholm Syndrome with it, because I’m starting to like it, especially for its lack of a film it leaves, unlike the stick stuff from the US.
We spend Wednesday exploring downtown Galway’s small shops and restaurants, starting off with lunch at Kai, recommended to us by the wife of the creator of Doom (they’ve got an office in downtown Galway). It had a little plaque outside indicating it had some kind of Michelin rating – apparently it’s “bib gourmand,” which means you can get tasty food for an affordable price.
It was pretty dang good – a great surprise for lunch. I didn’t know Galway was a food haven!
Downtown Galway criss-crosses a river and a dam, and little flags on banners overhang the streets. It’s pretty charming and we had a good time wandering around and exploring the various shops. The weather kept pouring rain on us about once an hour for five minutes. Neat.
A used bookstore 
We popped by the Galway cathedral, close to downtown. The pope had visited it once and there were loads of signs up about the visit from the pope many years ago. The giant pipe organ was impressive!
The space adventures of Jesus 
These some pipes! 
I did not get thrown out for taking this picture.
To round out our afternoon, we stopped at Cupan Tae, a traditional Irish teahouse. The interior decor was very Alice in Wonderland – doilies, lace, and pastel pink galore. The men present inside looked surprisingly like they hadn’t been dragged into the restaurant. We got a pot of tea each and fancy heavenly desserts.
We spent our last evening in Galway chilling with takeaway and Irish Netflix, which has an astounding amount of movies and shows. I dislike you even more, American media companies.
The next morning, we piled in our seven seater people mover and headed out for Dublin, but not before detouring for even Moher cliffs! Heyoooo. (Look, I know you’re here for my top-class puns)
The Cliffs of Moher are about 1.5 hours southwesty of Galway, and are the filming site of the Cliffs of Insanity (Princess Bride) and the horcux cave (Harry Potter). The roads get sequentially more and more narrow as you get further out into the peninsula, away from the motorway. Fortunately, we didn’t get stuck behind a tourist bus, but we did have to tolerate some very jumpy tourist drivers who liked to drive in the middle of the road or swerve all over the place (she wrote judgmentally, having been this way a mere six days ago).
The Cliffs have been a tourist destination for a long time, and they used to let people get pretty close to the edge – even dining near the edge, in some cases! Now, there are lots of signs warning you to stay away from the edge, which is definitely what I’ll be doing on this day with insane wind gusts and intermittent rain showers.
Pro tip 
Horcrux cave 
Small restored castle 
Closer to the horcrux cave 
The cliffs of insanityyyy
Having our fill of 50 MPH wind gusts and ocean spray, we left the cliffs and set out for a quick stop at Father Ted’s house, located in the middle of nowhere but conveniently between us and Dublin. It’s also smack in the middle of Burren Hill National Park, which looked like the moon in some parts, and like Witcher 3 in other parts. It was worth the minor detour for all of us!
Lakey moon and weird rocks 
Drowners lurking…
Our midpoint of our journey onward to Dublin was at Sean’s bar, Ireland’s oldest pub (and perhaps the oldest in the world, jury’s out on that one). We sidled up to the bar and ordered ourselves some beer. They had Budweiser on tap for those who traveled across the world to have pee water just like they would at home, only in the oldest pub in Ireland…
After our pints, we completed the final hour and a half to Dublin as part of our great Irish road trip (for half the group) – just over 1,000 miles added to the seven seater people mover in the past week. Now to jam it down one last tiny alleyway without scraping it…
Tomorrow, we explore Dublin!