On July 22rd we left Northern Ireland and traveled to Galway, in the Republic of Ireland. We only had a few hours to explore the city, and from what I saw of the city I enjoyed it. At this point in the trip I was getting annoyed with Contiki (the tour group that I was traveling with). We had been visiting many cool cities and sites, but we weren’t given too much time to actually explore them in detail. We had approximately 1-2 hours in Galway, which in my opinion is not nearly enough time to visit a city and get a good sense of the area. Either way, since I was unable to change this fact, I made the best of it and took my little time in Galway to explore the pubs and shops along the main street. They have a pedestrian area downtown that is full of pubs and stores and lots of souvenir shops. Below are some photos I took of the city.
There are also a lot of jewellery shops selling the traditional Irish Claddagh ring. This ring depicts two hands holding a heart with a crown on top of the heart. The hands represent friendship, the heart represents love and the crown represents loyalty. The ring can be worn on either hand and with the heart facing either towards or away from you – all depending on your relationship situation. If you are single then the ring is worn on your right hand with the heart facing away from you (so the pointy part of the heart is facing out - it looks like the ring is upside down). If you are in a relationship but not engaged then the ring is worn on your right hand but with the heart facing you, so the pointy part of the heart is facing down towards your wrist. If you are engaged then the ring is worn on your left hand with the heart facing away from you, and if you are married then the ring is worn on your left hand with the heart facing towards you. The origins of this ring come from the village of Claddagh which is part of Galway City, and many rings are passed down through generations of family members.
The following day we spent the whole day exploring one of the Aran Islands. This was probably the best day I’ve had since arriving in the UK. The Aran islands are a group of 3 islands off the west coast of the Republic of Ireland. We only had time to visit one of them, and we spent all day on that island exploring it by bicycle. The island was just beautiful! I really enjoyed biking along the water, past cows and horses, beaches, rocks and cliffs.
Biking along the paths and through the fields was so peaceful and beautiful.
We saw many animals along the route as well.
On one side of the island there is a large fort on top of a massive cliff. We climbed up to the fort to explore the cliffs. They were really cool – and very scary! There is no barrier to stop people from falling off the cliffs and down onto the rocks below!
The following day (July 24th) we headed off to visit the Cliffs of Moher, Ireland’s most visited natural attraction. These cliffs are about 214m high (at their highest point), and they are much larger than the cliffs we saw on Aran islands!
After visiting these cliffs I was able to compare/contrast them to the ones on Aran Island. Although the Cliffs of Moher are much larger than the cliffs on the Aran islands, I liked the Aran island cliffs better – mainly because we were able to get closer to the Aran island cliffs. For the Cliffs of Moher we had to stand behind barriers and could only see the cliffs from afar. I understand that this is done for safety reasons, but I did really enjoy getting right up to the cliffs edge on Aran islands!
Our next stop was Blarney Castle, home of the famous Blarney Stone. This castle was built by the MacCarthy of Muskerry dynasty and dates back to 1446.
The main attraction while visiting the castle is the Blarney Stone, which is a famous stone that, according to legend, will give the kisser the “gift of the gab”, meaning that it will give them the gift of eloquent speech. Once you enter the castle, you must climb up narrow staircases and through narrow passageways in order to get to the top of the castle, and to find the Blarney Stone.
Once we reached the top there was a long line up of people waiting to kiss the stone, and there were two attendants manning the stone. One was to man the camera (you can buy a souvenir photo of the kiss) and the other holding tourists as they are kissing the stone (just so they don’t fall through the hole!). After every few people the stone is sanitized.
Kissing the stone is pretty awkward; you must lie down, grab on to two metals bars and lean upside-down and kiss a wet shiny area of the stone. Hopefully it was all worth it and I have now been blessed with eloquence!
We slept in Cork that night, and the following day continued making our way through Ireland.
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