Ireland Trip Day Three - Galway

On the Tuesday of our trip we hired a car from north Dublin and set off to Galway. I'm the only one of us that drives, so I booked a smallish car, and was pleased to be given an Astra - my own car is a Corsa so it was very similar, just a little bigger in every direction, and all the controls were in the same places! Sam made us Irish themed mix CDs for the trip which we really enjoyed listening to.

Galway is absolutely stunning. We arrived just before lunch and checked into the hotel, the Connacht Hotel, which was nice enough. Then we drove to Salthill which has glorious beaches and views into Galway Bay. We had lunch at a seafood place there, and then had an ice cream.

I love beaches when they're all grey like this, just beautiful

We went to Katie's Claddagh Cottage which was extremely small, as demonstrated by me, 5'5", standing in a doorway. 

Then we went into Galway town centre and parked, and walked through the Latin Quarter looking at the shops and restaurants. 

We went back to the hotel for a bit and then drove west. One of the things I wanted to see was the sun setting over the Atlantic, so we went as far west as we could get. We were down a small track with a ruined building next to us. There were lots of clouds which was a shame, but we did manage to see some of the sunset. 

Panorama of a viewpoint about half way along our drive

This beach was my favourite I think

This was where we stopped for the sunset. There were hundreds of crab claws that birds must have discarded. 

Selfie of us waiting for the sunset.

This was about as good as it got

Very creepy abandoned building just next to us!

And here was my very cute hire car, I really liked it.