Back in April of last of last year I published a post about us going to Galway for a weekend. Then someone took over our WordPress site forcing a restore from backup. I did not notice the Galway post was gone until recently. Searching through backups and notes all I was able to find was the Facebook post with the first few hundred words and the pictures.
Much big mega sad face. Reviewing all of the things the other post we lost was our Glasgow, Edinburgh Sterling castle post, which I’ve already recreated. To redo this one I’m going to stick all of the pictures in a post and write around the pictures telling the story that I remember still. We had booked a flight to the US to visit family but were turned away at the airport due to our connection in Boston being snow canceled. Having two weeks of spring break off of school, and no where to go we booked a local trip to Galway for a weekend.
Getting to Galway
The Buses are normally cheaper than the trains in Ireland and don’t generally take a great deal longer than the trains. We like cheap, so we booked a bus to Galway. Up early, on the LUAS to the Bus station in downtown then Bus into Galway.
Our Hotel – the Flannery
We stayed at the Flannery hotel on the top floor in their family suite. It has the most amazing family room of any hotel we’ve stayed in to date. It’s huge; filled with enough beds for all of us. We had a great view out our rear window of a football pitch filled with young lads playing football. Mila and Khaleesi spent a measure able amount of time sitting in the window watching the boys play football.
The Flannery is not in downtown Galway its about 3k walk from Eyre Square in the center of Galway. Our bus dropped us in front of the hotel on the way; thanks bus. On the way back we had to walk into town and catch the bus at the bus/train station next to the square. We don’t mind a walk so it’s no big deal for us staying so far away.
Walking to Ballyloughane beach
The first adventure from the hotel is a walk to Ballyloughane Beach, a strait 1k walk away. The walk was nice, not too cold, but once we hit the beach we found the wind and it cooled off fast; brrrr. We lingered for a bit watching a couple of kite surfers who were loving the wind vs. us not being too excited about the cold wind. They were almost flying in the wind. We tried to walkout at the end of the beach through a football club, but there was no way out.
We ended up back tracking the beach. Along the walk back we stopped in at a few fields before we went to a Spar. We bought the kids some ice cream at the Spar before crossing the street to our hotel for a break. From the hotel Maddex and I walked to Supermacs, a pizza and burger joint, where we picked up a pizza and other shit foods for the family to eat for dinner.
Walking around town
It’s a new day, now it’s time to explore the exciting city of Galway.
Walking out to an island
After walking around down time and checking out the fish tower museum thing we saw an island out in the middle of the water connected by a land bridge. We simply had to walk out there and explore it. The walkway out there was an old beat roadway on top of a pile of cement blocks. The cement blocks was pleasing to look at all symmetrical and lined up with holes in them. Super cool to look at. When we made it to the end of the road we found a square island fenced in with a gate at the end of the road.
Turns out the island is a sewage treatment facility and it’s not open to the public to explore or tour. Mutter – Big long walk with a total let down at the end. Glad the walk was nice. on the way back we walked on the beach a bit getting wet feet in the muddy tide flats.
Walking around downtown
Around our Hotel
Headed back home
Between our hotel and downtown area with the train station is a narrow inlet body of water. While in Galway we’ve been leaving the hotel turning right and walking around the top of the water way. Today we asked the phone to direct us to the train station and it took us towards the inlet of the waterway to cross on the train bridge. Not sure if we can but we have some time and blind trust in the GPS navigation.
As we approached the bridge we started to doubt our blind trust in GPS. The path seemed to take us directly onto a Military base. Thinking, Um should we be going this way, we paused for a minute and double checked the map. While we were paused contemplating someone walked by us, onto the base then turned right down an opening in a stone wall we could not see. I guess thats the way we go, so we followed. The path took us right next to the rail track over the inlet directly to the bus and rail station. We should have been taking this route the whole time.
