August 20th. Connemara and even more of Galway

This morning Dan drove out 20 miles to find the only place locally that stocked the tire brand we needed to replace. In the process he found out that someone else has already gone through a similar experience with another tire on our car and did not go through the bother of finding the exact match. At least I hope the gods of good karma were pleased with the effort.

Kids and I started out on a walk around town but very quickly ran into a shop that had "Catimini," "Desigual," and "Out of business, Everything must go" signs in the window. We experienced a few euphoric hours not too dissimilar to our time on the jasper beach until the store owner explained that it is a few remaining things in the corner that were out of business of being in season and so were on sale. Very disappointing! By then, Dan had returned and we hurried back to the hotel snapping a few pictures along the way.


Car restored to its former glory we drove off to see Connemara stopping on the way to see the beautiful ruins of Ross Errily friary. It is challenging to reach for large tourist buses because it is off the one lane overgrown road, so we only got to see a handful of other tourists at the ruins. And they too had left the place just for us soon.

It is a really interesting local custom to bury fresh dead at abandoned places of worship. Maybe it is comforting for the loved ones to know that their departed are in a place that used to be a place of worship. But how do you get permission to use the space? It is a bit disturbing to be in lost in a moment and imagining how the place used to be hundreds of years ago and then running into a grave stone barely 10 years old. That being said we saw a fresh looking femur sticking out from a hole at one of the ancient stone sarcophagi. A paradox? Georgia could swear she saw a ghost peeking from the tower window to wave goodbye.


The next stop was Ashford castle hotel. It is a truly giant non-defensive castle on the shore of a lovely lake with some mini islands. It is probably larger than Versailles. Plebs are charged 5€ a pop for a visit to un-maintained but equally extensive grounds. No map or bathroom is provided. It is 200-500€ to stay without a promo code. Truly a place one can feel like a royal. Somewhat disgusted we continued our journey stopping at the ruins of Cong Abbey. Those were more extensive and much better positioned for mass tourism so not as interesting and ghosts are all scared away.

Next we went towards Lough Nafooey covering the route suggested by this guide. In general there are so many ways to explore this truly magical region. This is where it looks like "real Ireland" in so many shades of green one would not think it is possible. It is very very pretty. Unfortunately it started to rain, and mists arose around the mountains. We were not able to capture any of the beauty with our camera.

Passed the beautiful fiord too but did not see any dolphins.

Kylemore Abbey was next. It was raining so hard by now that we barely could transfer ourselves to the cafeteria hoping to wait it out. A mediocre meal later the rain did not relent so we got back on our way. It was interesting to find out that Angelica Huston attended the International Boarding School while it was ran here at the Abbey. Living in a place like this must definitely have rubbed of and had influenced the richness of the character she played in the Mists of Avalon.

The rain had stopped 20 minutes from Galway. Next on our program was the walking tour performed by professional actors. Tribes Alive re-enacted stories in the lives of some of 14 merchant families living in town and revealed some of the secrets about the city. The actors created a magical performance seamlessly changing costumes, disappearing to show up in some second story house window or inside a pub. We were all blown away and it further added to the charm of this wonderful city. We will miss it when we will get back on the road tomorrow.