Ireland Part 6 of 6 Galway Restaurants and Activities

This is my last post in a series of 6 all about my trip to Ireland in June of 2013.  The first 5 article links can be found at the bottom of this post, so please check out my adventures.:) Now onto my last post in my Ireland series, which is all about the town of Galway!

The last city we visited on our fabulous two week long trip travelling with our car through Ireland was Galway.  Our last stop in a new city, Galway was only for two nights, so we tried to make the most of it and see as much as we could in our last 2 days in new city before turning for our last 2 nights in Dublin prior to heading home to sunny Southern California.

 

We arrived late in the day/ early evening in Galway and were rushed to find a place to eat because it was a weekday evening and most restaurants in the area close early (about 9:00pm) and it was already about 7pm when we arrived into town.  In Galway, we were staying in a popular quaint area with a great big grassy park smack dab in the center called Eyre Square.  The park looked like a lovely place to take a stroll and there were many adorable restaurants and boutique shops in walking distance around the park.

The day we arrived in Galway was June 4^th, which was a very special date for my husband as I as we were celebrating our 8 year wedding anniversary.  I honestly cannot believe how quickly time flies!  Since it was our anniversary we wanted to find somewhere special to dine. We were very lucky to find that one of the top restaurants with high ratings was located inside of our hotel!!  We were so happy to discover that our hotel, The Park House conveniently housed the fabulous restaurant, called the Park House Restaurant!  The restaurant originally opened in December 1975 as “Eyre House Restaurant” on Eyre Square and quickly became the city’s busiest and best loved restaurant.

 

We thoroughly enjoyed our experience at Park House and they even brought out a special Happy Anniversary Dessert to us with the words written across the decadent sweet specialty.  All of the dishes were amazing.  Something we really loved in this region was the crab. It is a specialty in this region and we could not get enough of it!

 

 

The next day we woke at a decent time because we were on our way to travel to the Cliffs of Moher!  This is a place we had both always dreamed of going as we have always seen it in history books, so we were quite excited!  We had heard that you can take a bus trip that was an all day excursion, but we decided to drive and make the mission on our own…I am so glad I drove because it gave us the opportunity to make an awesome stop along the way!

Upon starting out on our drive to the Cliffs of Moher, we came to realize that it would have been more convenient to visit the cliffs on the way from Killarney to Galway as it was somewhat central in between those two destinations, so we did end up doing some backtracking…

On our way to the Cliffs of Moher, we discovered an awesome place called the Ailwee Caves, which was about 45 minutes away and we just had to make a detour to visit!  The Ailwee caves are one of the oldest underground caves in Ireland! In addition to the caves, there was also a Birds of Prey Sanctuary & an awesome cheese shop where fresh cheese is made by hand!

 

Once we arrived at the Ailwee Caves, we took a 30 minute walking tour through the cave which included a gorgeous array of stalactites and stalagmites below the earth and an intense description of when the cave originated, who found it and how long it has been there.  After visiting the cave, we got to visit the Birds of Prey with many fascinating types of owls and other birds.

Lastly, we visited the cheese shop where we sampled several cheeses that had won contests in Ireland for being some of the best cheese and it was delicious. We ended up buying 2 huge chunks because they can stay fresh for up to 3 weeks with no refrigeration and then 5 weeks thereafter when refrigerated!  This was perfect for us considering we were tourists still gone for several more days. 🙂

 

Our next stop was the Cliffs of Moher which was a several hour drive, but it was all such a beautiful drive, you really do not mind!  The roads are very curvy and narrow and I was quite happy I was not trapped in a tour bus on the journey because I would have been car sick and freaking out as the bus made it’s way through all of the steep turns and hilly areas. It is very nice to be able to take your own car, so you can make as many stops along the way as you choose to and so you can spend as little or as much time as you choose.

Upon arriving at the Cliffs of Moher, I will say it was a little later than I wished it would have been and all of the gift shops were closed and rest rooms were locked and we got caught up in the only rain storm we experienced on our whole trip. Although it was cold and rainy, we did get to see the gorgeous view from the Cliffs of Moher and explored the area as thoroughly as we could with the time frame we had before the sun started going down.  This was such a sight to see.

 

We returned back to our hotel in the early evening and ventured off to find a new restaurant a little further in town that we had heard was quite a hip place with a wine theme. (We are both huge wine people, so we were excited) The best part of this place is that it was open till midnight and there were many other bars in the area that stayed open later. We were happy to find this treasure! The restaurant was called The Rouge Galway and had a French theme.  Although the menu choices were limited to one 3 course meal option with 2 choices, the food was fabulous, fresh, fast and a great price! I totally recommend it! I had a steak for my main dish and of course I ordered a delectable cheese plate to go with my wine! J Our waitress was so friendly and tended to all of our needs and was a student studying in Ireland, but came from France. Check out our pictures with her. 🙂

 

As I mentioned earlier, this post is part 6 in a series of blog posts all about my fabulous trip to Ireland in June 2013! Part 1 is about Flight & Transportation.  Part 2 is Gorgeous Hotels & a Crappy Rental Car Scam.  Part 3 is all about Restaurants and Activities in Dublin. Part 4 is all about Restaurants and Activities in Cork. Part 5 is all about Restaurants and Activities in Killarney.  

The next morning we headed out to Dublin to return our car and spend our last 2 nights in the happening city. We thoroughly loved our time in Galway and I recommend making a visit there. It is a small town and I think 2 nights was perfect for our stay. My only qualm is that I wish we would have arrived earlier in the day on our first day there to visit some of the stores in town.  Have you ever been to Galway? If so, share your experiences with me below. 🙂

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