Picture heavy post!!!
When Hawk was like “let’s go see Galway!” I have to admit that in looking at the map of it, it didn’t look that exciting. Lots of bars and coffee shops, and while those are great, I didn’t want to spend my whole three or four days there getting wired and drunk. So I looked at day tours, to see if there was anything around just outside of the city I might want to see. Giant cliffs were high on the list! (Giant cliffs? High? SEE WHAT I DID THERE?) Since I want to see the Cliffs of Dover in England in November, I thought I’d see if there was something similar in Ireland. Cliffs of Moher? Sounds great? But do I want to see them from the top? Or from the bottom? It took a bit of searching, but I found a tour that would do both, AND take me out to a little island as a bonus.
When Jenn decided to come, she took a look at the two tours I’d signed up for, and absolutely wanted to come along on them! Here’s the first post about the first tour (we saw so much I wanted to break it up into two posts each). This is about the bus ride to Doolin, the ferry to Inisheer, the ferry back to Doolin, then I’m going to skip the ferry out underneath the Cliffs (that will be in the next post), the bus from Doolin up to the top of the Cliffs, then I’m going to skip the top of the Cliffs (that will also be in the next post), and the bus ride from the Cliffs back down to Galway. Whew! It was a long day – but hella fun!
The bus ride was genuinely amazing. The scenery! The green! The stone walls!
Now… what can I say about the ferry, other than it was so fucking windy I genuinely thought we were going to be tossed off the top of the boat! Holy shitballs, I’m glad I don’t get seasick.
I don’t know that these pictures show the height of the swells. It was WILD, yo. I had my arm wrapped around the metal bars, and the cord of my camera wrapped around my hand and wrist in case, because it was SO bumpy. Some of the pictures I got from under the Cliffs (those will be in the next post) I joked with Jenn that the only reason I got them when we were on the far side of the boat was because the swells would tip us up and sideways, so then I could get pictures over everyone else’s head. Hahahahaha. Yikes!
Anyway. It was a quick trip over to the island of Inisheer.
Inisheer (Inis Oírr) is the smallest of the three Aran Islands in Galway Bay. I think the population is a little under 350 people. Most of them seem to make a living serving the tourist industry; horse and buggy tours, walking tours, little craft shops, a B&B with a restaurant… they even have a teeny tiny airport and you can fly from there to Galway in… I think they said eight minutes? That’s just adorable!
We could have walked up the hill to the castle ruins, or we could have rented bikes and biked around the island, or we could have taken a guided tour in a horse-drawn carriage. Guess which one we took!? Enjoy some of the scenery…
And now a little more ferry, back from Inisheer to Doolin (I’ll put the rest of the ferry pictures, from the bottom of the Cliffs, in the next post).
Who needs a cute picture of me bundled up six ways to Sunday?! It wasn’t even COLD cold, it was just that the wind was HELLA MAD and kept punching me in the face!
The trip back from Inisheer to Doolin wasn’t quite as rocky. Maybe because the wind was in back of us instead of against us? The water was lovely, though. So shiny. And overall the weather for this day was perfect – we couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful day. Good sun and clear skies, no rain… it was amazing.
How about a cute picture of Jenn and I, with the Cliffs in the background?
And now the rest of the bus ride, back from the Cliffs to Galway. Where we pretty much fell asleep right after eating dinner! The drive back was pretty quiet, as pretty much everyone was tired from the day. I think the whole tour was ten hours? I’d take this tour again, to see more of Inisheer and to see the cliffs from the bottom again… but I’d like more time at the top. We only had two hours up there and it was barely time to get out as far as I wanted before I had to turn back, to get something to eat and go to the bathroom before getting back on the bus.
Next up… the actual Cliffs of Moher!