What a vibrant place! It’s like Dingle on steroids. Having parked in the railway station car park we wandered into town to find a restaurant. Galway is known for its music scene, food and bars. Being a Friday night, of course, all the notable restaurants were fully booked. We had found a Portuguese restaurant on Google that got good reviews so we booked a table. We arrived there to find that there were doing a special three course set menu with paired wines. It all sounded delicious.

And boy, was it ever. Each course was a meal in itself. We then investigated various bars in the Latin Quarter. They were all heaving with live music. One pub, The Quay Bar, must have had somewhere between 500 and 1,000 people in all its nooks and crannies. Bedlam. We also went into Taff’s Bar and Tigh Neachtain. It was a bit exhausting just watching!

The next morning after a surprisingly peaceful night considering where we were, we did a self guided tour of the city. We took in the Saturday Market (great bagels for lunch), Nora Barnacle’s House (James Joyce’s wife), Kirwan Lane, Hall of the Red Earl, Spanish Arch which is part of the old medieval wall and named after Spanish traders, Salmon Weir Bridge and finally Galway Cathedral. This was a fairly modern cathedral built in 1960s but beautifully done.

We drove out towards our overnight stop at the Rock of Cashel, 110 miles away, via the Dubarry outlet store. Some of you will know the brand for sailing and country boots. Liz got a pair of country boots for around half price. Sadly, nothing on Jo’s size. On the way to Cashel, we drove through Thurles, which is apparently the heartland of Gaelic sport and has the biggest stadium outside of Dublin. The roads were teeming with rival supporters hours before the start. It looked great fun and we hoped Tipperary would be successful against Clare but it wasn’t to be.

We arrived at our free park up (P4N#259358) with a great view of the castle. We went for a wander before retiring back to the van to watch Eurovision.

Miles since last blog: 111

Miles this trip: 1,383