May 11: The Cliffs of Moher and Galway Tour
Whenever I was planning for my trip to Ireland, I assumed I would be going to a country full of green land. All I see when I look out straight is grass, and on the side is the coast. I was not expecting to be driving through Pittsburgh when I got off the plane. Today was the day where my expectations were exceeded. This will probably be the highlight of my entire trip.
Mine and Mel’s day started off with us waking up at 5:30 in the morning. This was because our bus was picking us up at 6:55 am. We had a long day ahead of us, but it was so worth it. We headed off to The Cliffs of Moher with our tour guide, Brian, and driver, Stipay. The whole trip was going to be about 12 hours since we were going to Galway and Cliffs of Moher. I had expected us to be driving up the cliffs, but instead there was a parking lot just at the bottom of them. We had 2 hours to explore, which really turned into an hour 30 since we had to walk to and from the bus without getting left behind. Since there were a ton of other tour buses, Brian put a green fedora in the window for us to know it was our bus. I was in awe the second I got to the ledge of the cliff. My jaw was on the floor. This was one of the prettiest views I have ever seen in my life. I can’t even describe what I saw, so you will have to look at the pictures I included at the bottom of the page. I also got to briefly see the spot that a scene from Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince was filmed at. I also didn’t expect to see the number of cows and sheep that I saw.
I unfortunately had to get back onto the bus, but not before I ordered me and Mel a raspberry croissant to split. The raspberry was basically granulated sugar with a slight raspberry taste. We couldn’t really taste it as much as we had hoped, but it was still very delicious. Now we are ready for our drive to Galway. Along the way we passed this area that was made out of rocks. It was very interesting, and I had wished we could get out and explore. We had places to be though.
Once we got to Galway, we realized there wasn’t much to do. We had 2 hours to explore this city as well, but we honestly just wanted to sit down and eat. So we saw this little outside market, got food, and sat and ate until we were ready to keep walking. The market had some cute items where Mel found some souvenirs. We saw these amazing looking strawberries with cream on our way to the pub Ed Sheeran filmed his music video, ‘Galway Girl’. We wanted to go back and get them as a little treat before going back to the bus. Whenever we headed back from the pub, the strawberry stand was gone. We had to scramble to find a different treat with the 20 minutes we had before we had to be on the bus. After getting a little lost, we found a grocery store in a nearby mall. We bought a thing of strawberries. These were the best strawberries I had ever eaten in my life. They were so sweet and juicy. I only stopped eating when I saw a dead fly on the outside of one of them. Anyway, it is time to head back to the apartment! We arrived back around 7:20 pm where we laid around before eventually going to sleep. This was such a fun day and I wish I had more time to spend on the cliffs.
