Quick note: lots of pics in this post, so please forgive us if it loads slowly.
As Charity mentioned, Ireland is the Coach Isle. As we do not have a rental car to go sightseeing, when we reached Galway, we decided to set up basecamp and use the city as a jumpoff point for tours– something we only did in Salzburg with the Sound of Music tour. Luckily for us, we found that Galway had a few larger tour companies that would take us to places we’d heard of from Rick Steves. After just a bit of research, we settled upon the Galway Tour Company because of its very favorable reviews on TripAdvisor.
We went on the Connemara and Cong Tour first. Between acres of 40 shades of green, we visited an abandoned friary, observed a stone circle and burial cairn from afar, and risked our hides dodging killer sheep to get some spectacular lake valley pics…
The next day, we went on the Cliffs of Moher and The Burren tour. The Cliffs have a new visitors center… and lots of walls to keep the tourists from going towards the edge. Yes, folks, people have actually gone over the edge on accident, and now, there is a park ranger watching for fence jumpers. For the Potter fans out there, the Cliffs of Moher were used in The Half-Blood Prince. Besides the incredible Cliffs, the tour included a castle, an archaeological national park, an ancient wedge tomb, and a fairy fort…
During our many coach rides, Gaelic Storm popped up and really set the mood for our trip. We’ve been fans ever since they performed at Borders Ward Centre (where we worked) over a decade ago. An American Celtic band, they rocked the house and probably still do. I would highly recommend catching them if they are ever in your town. With that, here’s Hills of Connemara:
//youtu.be/37OCRq8Sjfg
Update: this was originally an Imeem link, but Imeem shut down in 2009.