After the visit to Marble Arch Caves (covered in my post about Ireland's Marble Arch Caves and Belleek Pottery), we had a long drive down to the city of Galway, which was our next stop and the location of our hotel for the night. The drive between the two took about three and a half hours. We were planning at stopping off at a couple of places (Sligo and Castlebar) on the drive down, but we had run out of time and wanted to make the most of the time in Galway. We ended up driving through Sligo but did not stop. At some point, I would like to explore the lakes area to the west and north of Galway.
We arrived in Galway the late afternoon, and after dropping our luggage off at the hotel, we went to explore the town. Galway is a much larger town than Donegal, which I wasn't really aware of when I was planning my road trip. Galway is also a more touristy town, and nearly everything in this town caters to tourism.
The pubs and shop fronts look picturesque and colourful along the main street, and as the weather was fairly nice (although a little cold and windy) during our visit. A few people were sitting on the tables outside, and we heard Irish music coming form some of the pubs.
We also explored some of the back streets and side streets.
One street had a flower shop on it, and the flowers were beautiful.
Galway is not the most picturesque town to photograph as it's commercialised and busy, but I probably could have taken some better photographs if I'd had longer time. The town was nice enough but had the air of a place to "pass through" and spend money.
When walking up the main street, eventually we came to Eyre Square. There are cannons and artwork in the square. The cannons came from the Crimean War, and there's a statue of John F. Kennedy. The flags along the square represent the names of the fourteen tribes (merchants) of Galway.
Another feature in the square is Browne's doorway, which I photographed detail from (below). The door is dated 1627, and it contains the family's coat of arms and is influenced from Renaissance design. It was moved from Abbeygate Street to its present location.
On our walk down the street, I stopped off at a bakery just before it shut its doors for the evening. I recognised it from a television programme that I saw earlier in the spring. I bought a strawberry pastry, which was lovely, and we had ice cream from another shop. We had to stop off at a department store to buy new luggage for my parents as their zip/zipper on theirs broke.
After having a quick walk back down the main street, we stopped off for dinner at one of the pubs.
Galway has a long history. The location along the river was settled as a fishing village, and it was controlled by fourteen tribes (merchant families). It became a walled city in the 1270s. The town became particularly important with trade between Portugal and Spain, but this declined due to Cromwell and the opening of other ports in Ireland. Only small sections of the old walled city's old walls can be seen, and the most attractive piece is the "Spanish Arch" near the harbour.
Other items that I saw in Galway included the Claddagh Ring, a love token. These were being sold to tourists in most places in Galway, and they were more popular here than anywhere else. The symbol is love, loyalty and friendship. It was created in Roman times and was a symbol of engagement. The rings are handed down from mother to daughter. Carvings and signs of this symbol were everywhere.
One of the sculptures we saw along the main street was of Oscar Wilde and Eduard Vilde, two writers. We also saw an attractive-looking church and some street art and another old building, which has since been converted into a bank. We only had this late afternoon and evening in Galway and felt that we had seen most of the town. We needed to wake early in order to leave for our next destination, Clonmacnoise.
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