Ireland Day 11

Ginger count: So. Many. Gingers.

The day’s agenda: Say goodbye to Ashford and hello to Galway.

The weather for the day was stunning, another blue sky day to follow up the few days of rain and gray skies we saw earlier.

After breakfast, we decided to wander around a bit before heading to Galway. The appearance of the sun transformed the look of the grounds. The grass around here is impossibly green. Part of me still can’t believe that we had the privilege of staying in a real live castle!

Goodbye Ashford, hello Galway!

After a short drive (filled with closed roads and much confusion on all our parts, humans and Garmins alike) we made it to Galway and our hotel. I’m finally getting the hang of the infamous roundabouts! Yes, I am quite proud of myself. Since our room wasn’t quite ready, we parked Seamus in the hotel’s car park and wandered around the Galway city center. Galway has a younger and more vibrant vibe than Dublin, but it could just be that the city is a bit younger.

There’s a cool archaeological dig site in the center of the city

The view from our room

During our afternoon wanders, we had a delicious lunch at a place called 56 Central. The food was reasonably priced and not heavy in the slightest. The perfect kind of meal, I’d say! There were a lot of cool stores in the city center that we wandered. I finally found a reasonably-priced Irish-made wool sweater! I also grabbed some more gifts for friends that I am excited to give them when we return home. Somehow throughout our travels, I left my water bottle somewhere…so some lucky person now has an orange Colorado State University bottle. Happy birthday, random person!

We finally got into our room at the hotel, where we are currently resting before heading out to dinner and maybe to check out some of the nightlife (I am NOT drinking excessively tonight, I swear). My goal is to find a place that has another craft beer from Galway Bay Brewery called Buried at Sea. It looks delicious. If I find it I’ll report back! We also may try and check out the Róisín Dubh and any other unusual place that crosses our path.

Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!