Galway

On Thursday 3rd April I went on a 4-day trip to Galway with my friend. During that time we did two smaller day trips, one to Cliffs of Moher and the other to the Aran Islands. Because of those trips, we didn't have that much time to get to know the Galway city itself, mostly just during the evenings and then briefly on Sunday before coming back to Sligo.

When we arrived to Galway on Thursday, it was around 7 pm. So during the first night we didn't do much, just found our hostel (located right in the city center, yay!) and then took a short walk around the city center and had dinner. In the evening the city looked very different, then I didn't fully get the comments about Galway being "one of the most beautiful cities" in Ireland. But the next morning, when it was light again, I could fully understand it. Galway is a lovely city. I would say its city center is one of the most beautiful ones I've seen in Ireland. The buildings are even more colorful and beautiful than what you would normally see in Ireland.

On Friday we went on a trip to see the Cliffs of Moher. Before going to the Cliffs, we did a couple of other stops and got to see the Burren and some of the landscapes on the West coast. After the stops we finally reached the Cliffs of Moher. And I have to say, those must be the Irish landscape at its best. The view and the Cliffs were spectacular. And for once, the weather was on our side. It was the perfect weather, with the sun is shining and hardly even any clouds on the sky. It was amazing to stand on the edge of the Cliffs and stare in the ocean. But I don't think mere words do any justice for this amazing place, so here's some photos:

After getting back to Galway from the Cliffs of Moher, it wasn't that late yet, so we went out to take a look around town. We had dinner and then tried to find a nice pub where we could listen to some traditional Irish music. After some searching, we found a nice place and we sat there for a few hours listening to music. But we went back to our hostel quite early, since we'd have to up early in the morning because we would go on another of our small trips,this  time to the Aran Islands.

The Aran Islands are a small group of Islands on the West coast of Ireland, where people mainly speak Irish. We went to the biggest island, Inishmore, that has about 900 inhabitants. We were eager to see if the people living on the island really speak Irish, since we were really interested to hear the language. But to our disappointment, we only heard Irish once. Some men at the pub where had breakfast were talking to each other in Irish, but all the other people we met spoke only English. But you could see the effect of Irish in other forms, for example most of the road signs on the island were only in Irish.

The landscapes on the island showed some rougher natural beauty. Even if the landscapes were quite rough and perhaps not beautiful in the traditional way, I for one thought the landscapes were quite beautiful. And what was interesting, was the fact that we hardly saw any of the locals when we were for example walking around the island. The only people we saw then were other tourists. That made the island feel a bit like a ghost town.

A lovely beach with such clear and light blue water!

Once we got back to our hostel again, we were too tired after the trip that we just went to bed early. In the morning we woke up a little earlier and used this chance to see the last of Galway and took some photos. We also went to see the National University of Ireland Galway, which was amazing for a school. All we could think was "we want to study there!" The buildings were beautiful, one of them looked a bit like Hogwarts or something like that. And the campus was huge. We walked around it at least 30 minutes and still we felt like we didn't see even nearly all the buildings. Seeing campuses like NUI and Trinity College, it makes me wonder how come we don't have campuses like these in Finland. They do make for example the campus of my school look kinda mundane and dull in comparison. 

After the last tour around Galway it was time to head back to Sligo. Though this time the bus ride back was far from pleasant. It was incredibly hot in the bus, because the air conditioning was broken and it was really sunny outside, which meant that basically the bus felt a bit like a sauna. It was amazing to finally reach Sligo and get out of the hot bus and get some fresh air.

Now it's a couple of days in Sligo and then it's time to hit the road again, because on Thursday we'll begin our big, 2,5-week trip! I'll post about all those places after the trip. Here's a couple more photos of Galway: