Had a bit of a lie in till 0800, then out to get the car. She said it was a BMW X1, then said that wasn’t available so would upgrade me to the next class for free and I had visions of a Mercedes, BMW 5 or something but it was a Hyundai i40 which had 115k on the clock and was a bit of a clunker.
Drove back to the hotel to pick Song up, then set off for Galway. According to Google it was about 2 hours 45 minutes by freeway or 3.5 by the other road, so decided to go the slower way to see the countryside. It turned out that the roads were basically country roads and narrow, with tall hedges either side, so it was difficult to see anything. There were no towns or villages, just the odd clump of houses. The weather was alternating between sun and rain, about 7C.
Feeling hungry, stopped at the first town we came to, called Edenderry, and what a dump it was, but we’d paid for parking and the thought of giving away 1.5 euro was too much to bear. There were boarded up and derelict shops, and more betting shops than cafes. We found a pub that looked ok, and there were no fights going on inside so we risked it. Song had the full Irish breakfast and I had cottage pie and chips, both were ok but I was just happy we weren’t mugged.
Set off again along the country roads, passing some nice houses as well as some old abandoned stone ones, and headed for a town called Mullingar because it had a cathedral and looked nice. The weather turned and it started to hail and then snow and dropped to 2C. It was colder than most of Iceland. Parked and walked to the cathedral, turned round and walked back when we saw we had to pay to get in. It’s not that we’re tight, but we’ve seen plenty of cathedrals and weren’t really in the mood.
Wandered up the main street, it was reasonably pleasant despite the weather, then back to the car and on to Athlone, another place that Google says is nice. The sun came out again for about 30 minutes, then it started raining as soon as we got to Athlone. Stopped for a coffee but decided to just get going to Galway, about an hour away. We passed pleasant countryside, stone walls, old stone houses that had been abandoned but didn’t look ugly, they gave the fields character. We also passed fields of sheep with lots of lambs – tiny, cute, white, and just delightful.
Arrived at the hotel in Galway and dropped the bags and went into the town.
It was buzzing – lots of people milling around plenty of cafes and restaurants (and pubs of course). Found a restaurant and tried to decide what to have, and chose lamb. I had braised lamb with lamb sausage on goats cheese mash, cranberries and apricots – it was very nice. Song had – guess, go on. Yes, fish again – cod ling.
We decided not to have dessert and just went back to the hotel, it was getting a bit late. Walking up the road we saw a band of buskers, and still lots of people around, the place had a nice vibe.
Tomorrow we’re going to Limerick via a couple of sights.
