On our second day in Galway, we booked an all-day tour to The Cliffs of Moher, with various stops along the way.  From the time we began planning our trip, we knew that the Cliffs of Moher was one site we definitely wanted to see, so we were all really excited for this.  Spoiler alert: it was really, really foggy and we couldn’t see anything!

Faaannnntttasssstic, but we had a nice day nonetheless.  If you’re planning your own trip, you can either do it through a tour company (which is what we did), or you can take a public bus there and then pay for your own entrance.  Usually I’m all for doing things on my own, but in this case, I really did think it was worth it to go with a guide.  (If you’re interested, we went with the Galway Tour Company and did the Cliffs of Moher and Burren Tour, which was only 25 Euros/person, not including lunch).  The entire day was about nine hours and the bus driver told lots of stories and pointed out a lot of things along the way.  There is no need to book in advance, as you can do it from your hostel or hotel when you arrive (even the morning of- which is what we did).

We headed to the bus station at 10 am for our tour.  The first stop was this awesome castle: Dunguaire Castle.  It’s a 16th century castle, once home to King Guaire, but is now home to the Hookers (the traditional sailing boats…ahahaha)  

This was probably my favorite stop the whole day because the scenery was so…Irish.  So green and lush and natural.  And the castle was cool too 😉  

The above photo is a photo of a traditional Irish home, where there was likely to be a mother, father, and 10-12 children all living together.  Can you imagine?

We took a little walk around, breathed in the fresh Irish air, and got on the bus 20 minutes later.

After the castle, we continued to The Burren (a rocky landscape) and the Gleninsheen Wedge Tomb, which dates back to 2500BC.  This stop was only for 15 minutes, but the landscape was quite incredible.

We made a pit stop for lunch (in the village of Doolin), and then we were on our way to the (foggy) cliffs!!!  Along the way, our driver told us that match-making is still alive and thriving in Ireland.  There is a 6 week festival coming up if anyone is interested!

Eventually, we made it to the cliffs, but as we were climbing the mountains, we saw that the fog was really coming in.  I don’t know why, but it never occurred to us that it might be foggy.  Rain, cold, etc., we expected.  But fog….nope.

We could see the edge of the cliffs, but not the beautiful, breathtaking views we were hoping for.  We walked along, stopping for some photos (basically like stopping for photos in front of a white wall….)

We took one more group photo for good measure:

And then had the famous Murphy’s Ice Cream.

It was good, but the ice cream from Halo Farms (in New Jersey) is 1000x better….and less expensive 😉

Our bus driver told us that since the cliffs were foggy, we could leave a bit early and have more time at another site with pretty views.  From the cliffs to this next site, I was feeling a little car sick, so I sat up front with the driver and listened to him talk a mile a minute and tell me lots of stories.  

I was trying to pay attention, but he talked so much and I was so sleepy/ drowsy/nauseous haha.  Luckily, he didn’t mind talking at me so it was fine 🙂  Eventually we arrived at our final destination:

Pretty, but nothing compared to what the Cliffs would have been!  We were cold and tired by this point, so I think we were all quite happy to get back on the bus and settle into a little snooze.

Once we were back in Galway, I showered and then we headed back out for a relaxing dinner and some drinks (for Teresa, haha)

All I wanted for dinner (and every meal) was brown bread, so soup with brown bread and a nice, light salad was perfect.

That salad had lettuce, goat cheese, cashews, beets, carrots, romesco sauce, and a really strange dressing.

Despite it not being the day we were hoping for, this day trip was probably my favorite thing we did all weekend.  The landscape in Ireland is incredible in and of itself and just being able to see the rolling green hills and pastures full of cows and sheep made me feel so lucky to be there.  I kept looking out the window and the passing farms and land full of green grass, spotted with big bushes of yellow flowers and kept thinking, “never in my life did I think I would be on a casual weekend trip to Ireland with two of my best friends, but here I am”.

We fell asleep full and happy and with grand plans to get up early and head out to the final destination- DUBLIN!