Posts Tagged ‘County Galway’

As a visually-oriented person, most memories of the places we’ve traveled come back to me in snapshots: that incredible field of wildflowers near Milford Sound in New Zealand, beautiful children trying to sell us trinkets at the Temples of Angkor in Cambodia, the infinite abyss of ocean off Shirahama in Japan. Despite my visual leanings, my memories of Galway are of the aural variety: looking back through our snapshots of this charming town on the west coast of Ireland, I can hear the music playing to each of our photos.

Ireland has a very strong musical culture, and Galway is often referred to as the epicenter of that culture. Everywhere you go in Galway, there is music. You can hear it in one of the many beautiful pubs, where there are live musicians playing every night…

…or walking down the block, where street musicians entertain the masses for a Euro or two:

There’s also the not-so-obvious music playing in the background of our Galway photos. The cry of seagulls as the cold, black ocean crashes into the magnificent Cliffs of Moher:

The Cliffs of Moher (aka The Cliffs of Insanity from The Princess Bride—yes, really!). To get an idea of the scale of these cliffs, look at the top left corner of the photo—there are people standing on that crag!

Seagulls flying over the cold, black sea.

The sound of happy cows grazing in the Burren:

Moo, mutha-effer!

The echo of our footsteps through the gorgeous Gothic Church in Connemara:

And of course, quite possibly the happiest music in all of Galway—a delicious pint of Guinness being poured in harmony with the slurping of oysters:

The nectar of the gods.

How we got from Athlone to Galway: Hitched a ride with Conall and his girlfriend Mariam!

Where we slept in Galway: We stayed at Dunaras Village, which is basically student housing converted into short-term stay apartments in the summer. The place was very comfortable and spacious, and at €45 per night for an apartment with full living room and kitchen, it was quite affordable by European standards. The only problem was, since it was located outside of the town center, we had to take the bus into Galway, which was at times difficult to negotiate since the bus doesn’t run that frequently. In short: Dunaras Village would have been absolutely perfect if we had a car.