Rainbow Day - Wednesday

OK I admit I’ve been a little bit slack. I was pretty tired yesterday after a long day out and lots of driving. So I didn’t get around to doing report. So today I'm posting two blogs. The first one covers what I am calling Rainbow Day (Wednesday).

The day looked much more promising than the previous days we’ve had, with scattered cloud in a mainly blue sky with sunshine. However, by the time we got to our first stop at the Cliffs of Moher the rain showers had started to move in, along with a gale straight from Iceland! It was a bit like Melbourne weather after a change with alternating sun & showers and this weather persisted all day.

The result of all of this was we had rainbows regularly off and on all day - we'd have a shower, it would clear and the sun wpuld come out and, voila, a big rainbow would appear. 

Nevertheless we rugged up and dodged the horizontal downpours as we climbed up to have a look at the Cliffs of Moher. Needless to say they are pretty damn impressive as you can see from some of the photos below. And I even managed to capture a rainbow just to show you what the day was like.

The Cliffs are one of Ireland's most popular tourist attractions, which you can certainly tell from the people that were there - there were hundreds of cars and about 30 buses at the car park. 

After the cliffs we headed down to the nearby little village of Doolin. We wandered through the town, which took about four minutes, and then decided that since it was after 12 that it was time to head into the pub for a drink and some lunch. Again, we found Irish pubs seem to be full whatever time you go there and certainly Gus O'Connor's pub was no exception. Still we managed to find a table, get ourselves some drinks and had a very nice lunch. I had a seafood chowder and Leanne had a beetroot & goat's cheese tartlet which were both really good.

After dodging a few showers while we were eating we headed off towards Galway, where we were spending the night. On the way we stopped at Corcomroe Abbey and had to wander around it. It’s amazing to see the scale of the Catholic institutions built in Ireland in the Middle Ages, but also to recognise the susequent destruction caused by the British and protestantism. While churches were often usurped by the protestants, most of the abbeys were of no value and were therefore destroyed. Corcomroe Abbey was one of those.

Eventually later in the day we got to Galway and pulled into our accommodation. Unfortunately this was a bit of a substandard option - the B&B was nice and breakfast this morning was pretty good and we managed to park the car off street. However, the room itself was the size of a double bed with about a foot all the way around it. There was nowhere for luggage, no chair to sit on and the bathroom was about the size of a small cupboard. 

After we checked in we headed into Galway town centre and wandered the streets. Galway has a very active and interesting Old Town centre pedestrian mall, with lots of shops, restaurants and, surprise, one or two (dozen) pubs. We managed to find one and spent a few hours having a quiet drink and then a meal. I’m really impressed with Irish pubs and we seem to be seeing a lot of the insides of them.

Then back to our cupboard and bed.

On to Thursday.