We arrived in Galway on Sunday, and the city has really changed so much in the 30 years since we were last here. Bigger, more traffic, more tourists, casinos (?!)…but still a good home-base for us, and a fun small city. We're staying in a nice modern apartment in the Salthill area, overlooking Galway Bay.

On Monday we wandered in the area of Eyre Square, the Latin Quarter, and Spanish Arch - all amidst periodic rain, and a lot of wind. That night the pub Tig Choili (crowded, seemingly mostly with locals? Us tourists stick out pretty obviously) featured some fine live music (guitar and 4-string banjo), and we met a local guy there who is part owner of The Irish Times bar in San Francisco - small world! We also dropped in at another pub for a bit more music - fiddle and small accordion.

Eyre Square

One of the streets in the Latin Quarter 

Spanish Arch, built  in 1584 as an extension
of the medieval town wall

A protective swan and her cygnets in the River Corrib

Galway has a small city museum, and it was really engaging - particularly the Bronze and Iron Age items, the exhibits on the Aran Islands (we visited there in 1992), and a section on the centuries-long fight for Irish independence. Oh, also the very creepy 1723 reliquary - part of the skull of St. Ursula. That night we attended the spectacular "Trad on the Prom" - traditional Irish song, dance, and music in a theater on the promenade fronting the shoreline. Really fantastic, just an incredible amount of talent on the stage! And  honestly, seeing that dancing up-close gave me a huge respect for the sheer skill and talent. BTW, it's not all from the waist, down!

Iron ax head and wood handle, 100-200 AD

Limestone bead, with fossils, 1100-800 BC 

Bronze tweezers, 1100-800 BC

Aerial view of one of the ring forts on the Aran Islands

What is it with reliquaries? St. Ursula. Or, part of her...

This guy plays Irish bagpipes, very different than 

the better-known Scottish pipes. 

Today we had a 1.5 hour walking tour of Galway, presented by Tribes Tours - a "pay-what-you-want-after-the-tour" kind of thing. Really fun, a very entertaining young man for a guide, some solid history, some legends and tall tales, and he was not averse to making a bit of fun of his own people. We saw a medieval wall-in-a-mall (they built the mostly underground mall around the old wall), a few 'castles' (actually large fortified mansions) of the early Galway power families (the 'tribes'), other sights, and an interesting church, which Eileen and I came back to visit. St. Nicholas church was built in 1320 (on the ruins of an even earlier Christian site), and has some really cool artifacts inside. Among them are 'vocational' grave stones, which have carved images indicating the deceased's occupation. Something I've never seen nor even heard of before, very rare and interesting!

Medieval wall in a mall

Woodworker's tools

Three crowned hammers, the mark of a master goldsmith

Scissors, representing a tailor

The oldest tomb in the church, 13th or early 14th century,
“The Crusader’s Tomb.” They think it came from a nearby
chapel of the Knights Templar, which was destroyed in 1324

There's a reason that the Cliffs of Moher are reportedly Ireland's most-visited landmark. They are beyond spectacular. We got some decent weather and arrived before the major crowds did, then went right to the cliffs (instead of the visitor center and shops, which are built Hobbit-like into a green hillside). Initially you go to two large, easy-to-access viewing areas, which indeed offer wonderful views, and are fully accessible (including golf carts - they call them the "lifts of moher" - to take some people up the path to the viewing areas if they need it). After that, I decided to hike all the way to a distant landmark, Hags Head. It ended up being about a 6 mile round trip, further than I expected but so worth the effort!

That old signal tower way out on the headlands
to the far right was my destination 

Getting closer…

Gravestones of all the people who died at the Cliffs of Moher
while trying to shoot a video over the edge…
not really, these are slabs of rock used to delineate the
 trail and keep people from the edge in some
 areas - but the bulk of the trail is "unprotected"

Made it!

Looking back toward where I started 

The next set of cliffs, where I turned back

This is where I walked down nearly to the very end 

of the headlands, beyond and below the signal tower. 

This coming Tuesday, we start the final leg of our Ireland journey, moving on to Northern Ireland.