Things you can do with rocks!

We had an amazing day and as we viewed the hills covered in green grass and rocks we started to wondered about all the things the Irish have created with all those rocks.  Everywhere you go you see short fences made of rocks (no cement is allowed) to keep in the cows and sheep, then there are castles of all sizes, statues, street cobblestones, tombstones, all sorts of carvings, etc.  Then there are things we have done with them since we've been here...open a jam jar on the side of road, spread peanut butter when you forget the knife, stumble over them when trying to climb up a windy cliff, and Rita's favorite "throw one at Suzan's head" for going down the wrong side of the road AGAIN!!!

After an Irish breakfast we took off for Galway.  It shouldn't have taken more than 45 min., but with all the wrong turns, no map and driving around and around looking for a parking spot it was more like 1-1/2 hours.  We stepped right into The Medieval Quarter of Galway.  It was so fun. There are streets of winding cobblestone lanes lined with boutiques, bars and funky cafes with a souvenir shop tucked in between each business. We strolled the lanes for as long as Rita could stand it before leaving on our quest to find Doolin and the Cliff of Mohers.

This is Quay Street in Galway.  We gave up on the umbrellas when the wind blew them out of our hands.  Side note:  When we left the parking garage we gave the attendant 7 Euros.  The cost was 6 Euros, but we didn't have the exact change so we just drove off.  The attendant ran for 3 blocks chasing us so he could give us back our ONE EURO.  The Irish are just unbelievable.

 

As we tried to find the road to the Cliff of Mohers we drove past two beautiful castles that seemed to come out of nowhere.  That's the fun of being lost most of the time.

 

The top one is the 16th century Dunquaire Castle.  The Galway Bay was so choppy that the castle seemed very ominous. 

The bottom castle looked like "Sleeping Beauty", but we never could find out what it's called.

 

Rita wanted to go to Doolin so she could find the "Doolin Pub" so she could listen to the music and say she was there.  As we drove up and down the little village to find the pub we finally asked a local where it was.  He looked like we were crazy and said, "there a pubs all over Doolin, just go find one!"  Finally, she looked it up in her book to discover it was actually called "Gus O'Connor's Pub" which we could see as we were driving up a cliff and it was below us.  No, we were not going back down a one-way street so she could hear Irish music.

 

Now it was 4:30 and we were almost at the Cliffs of Moher.  The wind was blowing so hard you could barely stand up and it was about 4 miles to walk to the actual cliffs.  We had seen the cliffs from the pier at Doolin so we decided that we had "seen the cliffs".  We made our way back to Ennis in time to go back to the Bragon's Pub for a wonderful bowl of Seafood Chowder.

 

Finnegan trying to hitch a ride with an Irishman after I went down the wrong side of the road AGAIN.  Something else done with rocks - a beautiful carving of hands.