Sunday April 24th: Galway, Ireland
Bob: This was the day for our visit to Galway. Lois wanted to go to the Easter service at a Protestant church, and the only mainstream Protestant church for many miles around was the St. Nicholas Church (Anglican communion) in Galway. Driving Lois into Galway to attend Easter Sunday service at St. Nicholas's Church turned into an unintended adventure. We had been amused the previous day by the 80 kilometer per hour speed limits on the rough, narrow, and twisty side roads, but we had just laughed off the insanity of trying to drive that fast on roads that poor. But I did not realize how those ridiculous speed limits would mislead our fast and efficient but easily-duped GPS. Since the main road was marked at 50 and 60 kilometers per hour while those rough, narrow, twisty country lanes were marked at 80 kph, when asked for the route to St. Nicholas's Church in Galway, our GPS naturally routed us along the "quicker" country lane route. As Monika guided me off the main road on onto the first narrow country lane, I started to have my doubts. Then the lane narrowed to one car width and we lost the center stripe and the side stripes, and my doubts increased. When two cars met head-on right in front of me, they both came to a dead stop and then the one in front of me started to back up! I had no place to go, so I had to drive up a driveway or alleyway to my left and then carefully make a U-turn and come back onto the "road" after the oncoming car had passed. My doubts reached full flower when I saw thick, healthy grass growing in the middle of the one lane alley, turning it into more like an old driveway with one paved track for each wheel. I would have turned back if I could, but I was by now locked into that road since it was so narrow I could not even manage to turn around if I had wanted to. Since there was absolutely no room to maneuver, I was honking my horn at every blind corner and at every blind hill, which was a powerful lot of honking, and hoping I didn't have one of those sudden, heart-stopping head-to-head encounters with an oncoming car thundering down upon us. This was all taking, of course, a bodacious amount of time and I really started to worry about getting Lois to the church by 11:00 a.m. Although that route destroyed my nerves and ended up taking us twice as long as the main road route would have, we did in fact get into Galway and drop off Lois in time for the service, barely. |
Monika: It was Easter Sunday and Lois wanted to go to church. The only Protestant church around was an 11th century church in the middle of downtown Galway that had changed denominations several times and ended up being Church of Ireland. Since we wanted to see Galway anyway, Sunday seemed to be a good time to drive and park in a city, and we decided to make a day of it. The Easter service was not until 11 AM and we left around 10. I sat the GPS to the address and we were supposed to get there by 10:30. When the GPS directed us off the main road to a one lane road I was dubious and wanted to keep going along the main road and let the GPS 'recalculate'. But Bob felt adventurous. So off we went. We kept turning left and right onto one Gaelic-sounding road after another, all with only one lane, one even with grass growing in the middle. Luckily the traffic was sparse and Bob managed to deal with the one or two cars that came against us. Finally, when we reached the outskirts of Galway the road widened a little and after another turn, we even got a middle stripe. Another kilometer or so into the middle of Galway and we were back on known territory and the church was visible. By now it was 10:45 and we let Lois off at the church. All Bob and I could figure, was that the country roads carried a speed limit of 80 km/h whereas the coastal road was marked at 60; thus the country road had seemed the fastest route, at least to the GPS. Never mind that no sane person would go 80 on those roads; Bob probably averaged about 35 to 40 km/h. In Galway we easily found a parking space near the church on the side of the road. |
Bob: Dropping Lois off at the side entrance of St. Nicholas, we found a parking space about 2 blocks away and closed up the car. I probably should have gone into St. Nicholas to give thanks for our deliverance from the rural Irish roads, but instead we walked around the city a while (which might just be a "smitable" sin.). First we followed a nice path along the River Corrib for a block and then we cut back to the church and the adjacent pedestrian mall that runs pretty much down through the center of the oldest part of the city. |
Monika: Our parking space was close to the river that runs through the city and we started out by walking to the river. There we found a delightful river walk that went between the main river and a little canal next to it. |
Bob: First we wandered North up to where the mall ended next to a pretty little park with a remnant of the original city and some rather odd modern art on display. Then we headed back South until we reached the other end of the mall at the Spanish Arches, and by that time an hour had gone by and we figured it was time to get back to the church and pick up Lois. |
Monika: We finally ended up at a pedestrian street, that was part of the official walk through Galway that Bob was looking at. I again enjoyed all the different signs that were hanging above shops and also the different pubs. We walked all the way to one end, Eyre Square, and then back to the river where the Spanish Arch was the last remnant of an earlier fortification. |
Bob: [Bob refuses to say anything here on the grounds of not being sure if God observes a statute of limitations on smitable offenses.] |
Monika: By now it was time to pick up Lois. When we reached St. Nicholas we heard the church bells peel and guessed that it meant the end of the service. The bell peal was beautiful with snatches of familiar music - the Hallelujah chorus and the Ode to Joy for instance. People started to come out of church and I looked in and saw people milling about for after service socializing. I thought we should go in and find Lois, but Bob was afraid of a thunderbolt smiting him for skipping the service (Lutherans are taught that way), so he did not come in with me. I found Lois in the church and we walked around and looked at the beautiful church. |
Bob: Once reunited we shopped a bit at the stalls set up just outside the church property, and I found some rather nice leather key ring fobs with Galway patterns embossed on them. |
Monika: Outside Bob had waited for us and we all walked through a row of stalls offering handicrafts and food. We found some leather key rings to take back with us. Once back on the pedestrian street, we walked with Lois along the pedestrian mall, stopping at a cafe across from the golden arches for a bite of Irish food. |
Bob: Since Lois had not seen the main tourist area, we returned to the pedestrian mall and walked there a bit before having had lunch. Afterwards we made a loop by ambling down the mall once more to the harbor and the Spanish Arches, but the sun had finally come out and it made the street look remarkably more cheerful. |
Monika: Again we ended at the Spanish Arches next to the river near the harbor. |
Bob: We returned back up along the riverside walk to show Lois that pretty part of Galway and finally ended up where we had parked the car. |
Monika: From here we took the river walk back to our car. That route gave us a good view of the Catholic Cathedral with its golden dome. |
Bob: We drove northwest out of Galway to a marble workshop and museum of sorts, where we were lucky enough to join a tour bus group for the basic presentation. We browsed the shop afterwards and Lois bought earrings, Monika bought a nice pendant, and I bought 3 coasters that had such complexly veined green and black marble that they resembled surrealist paintings of woods and streams. Very unique. |
Monika: Once at the car, we decided to drive north to a little town where they had a visitor center and workroom of the Connemara Marble Mine. I did not know that there was a marble mine in the Connemara mountains and was interested to see what they had. We got there just in time for the talk that was given for a tour bus that had stopped at the visitor center. I learned that there are three different marbles that are mined around Ireland. The red marble coming from the Cork area is already exhausted. Black marble with some fossils inside comes from a mine near Galway. The Connemara mine that is near Clifden contains green marble. We were shown different pieces of the different types of marble. At this place they were mainly making jewelry, but because it was Sunday, no one was working. So we could walk around workshop and see the different pieces as they were being worked on. Of course, we had to stop in the gift shop and I could not resist a beautiful necklace with a green marble stone. Bob and I also were intrigued by the coasters. Some of the ones from a light green marble had veins in them that made it look like trees. We looked through all of them and ended up with the three most beautiful ones (to our eyes, of course). |
Bob: Driving back to Spiddle we stopped off at our B&B, where our landlady graciously offered us an afternoon tea, and then took a walk over to the harbor at Spiddle. The breakwater was at least 20 feet high and the tides were apparently at least 10 feet or so as the boats tied up along the breakwater were just resting on the sandy bottom at ebb tide. |
Monika: Our drive had taken us to the northwest, and looking at the map, we found we were exactly north of Spiddle, and there was a relatively straight road going south to Spiddle. So we got home quite quickly and I managed to convince Lois (Bob did not need any convincing) to take an evening walk to the harbor. We walked along the main road till we saw a side road that led to a seawall that sheltered a little bay across from the town. We walked all the way out to the end of the pier, taking pictures of course. Bob then climbed up on top of the seawall and suggested I join him in going back on the high road. Of course, I climbed after him, while Lois declined the kind invitation. It was a fun walk, but it definitely was one of the "either walk or look around but not both" type of walks. |
Bob: A couple of brave young men ran out into the water, apparently to impress their girl friends. But I watched with amusement as they ran just as fast right back to shore and then gave their girl friends a big, wet, cold hug!! Ah, true love! |
Monika: We saw two teenage boys and two girls coming up to the water, with the boys dressed in swimming trunks. Obviously on a dare, the boys did slowly go into the water and I could almost hear their teeth shattering. They finally just dove in and then very quickly came running out, where the girls were ready with towels. |
Bob: Monika and I walked back along the beach while Lois walked back along the roads, and we were surprised when she beat us back to the B&B. Then we settled in for our normal light dinner and comfortable evening of reading and sharing the computer so that we could all check email, facebook, and so forth before turning in for the night. |
Monika: Bob and I decided to try the route along the water to get back to our B&B while Lois opted for the better footing of the roads. We first had to scramble across rocks, them came the sea weed section, some more rocks, and finally we reached the grass and the lane back. The white horse and donkey were still there to greet us. Lois beat us back to the B&B, but we had our evening meal together and then headed for bed. |
| Index |
| Prolog | Map of Transatlantic Cruise | Map of Drive in Ireland | Epilog |
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