Beautiful Galway!

As it was a long weekend in Ireland as well (I hear that it was one in NZ), Johnny and I decided to go out to Galway as neither of us had been there before. We had both been told that Galway is a beautiful little town and we weren't disappointed - we were even blessed with lovely weather for some of the weekend!

We headed over to the West Coast by train on Saturday morning and got there in time for lunch. We were staying at my cousin Jenny's flat so met her there. She had a huge assginment that she had to work on over the weekend (she is at university in Galway) so we left her to it and went off to do some exploring ourselves with the help of a list of things to do that she gave us.

We started off by walking through the University and into the old University Quad which another sightseer behind us comment 'looked just like something out of Harry Potter'. We then walked past the huge Catholic Cathedral and into the town which was bustling with people. We walked through the town and down to Salthill, a lovely promenade right by the sea which was cold but beautiful on this quite sunny day. The promenade stretches for ages so we walked a good length of it before turning around and walking back into town via Spanish Arch, a lovely area by the wharf which is very popular on a nice day. The main shopping street in Galway is almost entirely pedestrianised so we enjoyed strolling up it and checking out the stores, also the markets on a side street, and stopping for coffee before heading to the vigil Mass at the Cathedral.

Incidentally, whilst walking back to town from Salthill, we had a couple stop us on the street because the guy had noticed my greenstone carving around my neck. The were both Kiwis as well and weirdly enough were from Beachaven (the suburb next to ours in NZ)! But the 'small world syndrome' didn't stop there when, later that evening, I went down to the Statoil (garage station) with Jenny and Johnny and happened to run into a guy called Tirloch who I met six years ago whilst on holiday in Lahinch (Co. Clare)! Crazy times!

Anyway, that evening Johnny and I (okay mainly Johnny) cooked dinner for Jenny and her boyfriend Shane and we had a lovely evening chatting to them and watching 'The Mexican' on video.

Sunday, Johnny and I had hoped to go out to the Aran Islands but unfortunately the weather wasn't great in the morning so we decided to stick to Galway and had a lazy day, wandering around the town a little more before heading back to Jenny's to watch a video when the weather got too wet. That night I was determined to check out the famous Galway nightlife though so after a dinner of Chinese Takeaways, Jenny, Johnny and myself headed into the town. The nightlife is really good in Galway, there are tonnes of Pubs, most of them are packed and a lot of them play traditional Irish music in them. The atmosphere is great! However, none of us were up to too much that night so we only checked out a couple of pubs before heading home.

Monday we got up late and went for one last walk through the town before heading back to Dublin after lunch. We definitely have plans to get back to Galway sometime in the summer when we can go out to the Aran Islands and see more of the West Coast beauty.

Click here for our photos of Galway!