Hello again, I got a little behind on posting! Today I traveled from Limerick to Galway to my next AirBnB. I didn’t have a lot planned for Limerick, but some googling told me the top thing to do was to go to King John’s Castle, so I went. It was pretty neat, I even climbed all the way to the top of the highest tower (and may have had a mini panic attack on my way down… this trip certainly has not cured my fear of heights, but I’m doing my best to not let it get in my way of experiencing things! Online I saw that there are actors that play medieval characters in the castle, they weren’t out when I was there, probably because of the rain, but they did have digitized characters that explained the different roles in the castle so that was helpful. The whole time I was there all I sang “Prince John the phony King of England” from the Disney version of Robin Hood. Apparently John visited Limerick while he was acting as King for his brother King Richard the Lionheart who was busy crusading and declared that they should build a castle, so they did, but John never visited the castle.

After my self-guided tour of the castle I got on the road to Galway, and while on my way I saw signs for the Cliffs of Moher and decided to take a detour. I’m very glad that I did, the Cliffs are absolutely breathtaking. I kind of wish I had allotted some more time because I would’ve loved to do the 6 hour hike all the way through. But alas I didn’t, so I spent about an hour and a half walking around the cliffs, checked out the little shops on my way out, and got back in my car to finish my drive to my AirBnB in Galway. On the route I passed by the Dunguaire Castle and thought it looked like a neat stop so I turned around and parked and went to explore. Unfortunately as it turns out, after 4pm the castle transforms to a playhouse and they have a medieval show so the castle is only open to people with tickets. I didn’t have time to stick around for the show, so I took a couple pictures and got on my way.

I arrived to my AirBnB around 5:30pm. This was probably my least favorite AirBnB to get to (lots of narrow one lane roads) but by far was my favorite AirBnB I stayed in to date. It is a cute little studio apartment with a beautiful view of the mountains. The only downside was the scary drive in, so I took a lot of taxis when I went to town (also because I went to a lot of pubs so that was definitely the safest option all around).

I decided to get dinner and check out a pub so I found a restaurant called McSwiggans, there was a bar with bar food downstairs and a fancier restaurant upstairs, I was probably a little underdressed for the upstairs, but they had the food I wanted so I went for it. It was super packed when I got up there, clearly some kind of party happening, but I lucked out and got a whole section of seating all to myself. Definitely glad that I opted for upstairs, the Sirloin with garlic butter, carrot puree, and chips were remarkable!

After dinner I went across the street to Barr An Chaladh where there was some live music, it was pretty crowded so I took a very awkward seat right in front of a television where Manchester United was playing the Tottenham Hotspurs, but thankfully after a few minutes a table cleared up that was in a less awkward spot so I hopped over and grabbed it. As the night wore on the bar got more and more crowded. My table was right next to the ladies room and an ATM, while I was sitting there (getting way too invested in the football game) a guy walked up to the queue at the ATM and started talking to me. A little while later he came over and asked if anyone was sitting with me, he said that he and his friend were friends with the next band I told him they were welcome to join me. They were a delight and gave me a lot of good tips for my trip. All in all it was a very good night, excited to explore Galway tomorrow!