I wanted to make sure I got the absolute most out of my first weekend in Ireland and boy did I. This blog entry is an overview of my first weekend but if you want to go more in depth on any of this there are individual photo pages with more historical information.
We woke at 9am on Friday morning to begin our day full of Dublin's history. IES was kind enough to provide every student with a pass for a "hop on/hop off" bus tour through Dublin. There were 29 stops total, highlighting the old and new of Dublin's greatest offerings accompanied by an insightful educational track. The total bus tour took around three hours and it was well worth it. We got on the bus at stop number two, Heuston Station - one of the oldest transportation stations in Europe. Something that made sense after I heard it, but I certainly hadn't thought of before, was that Ireland remained relatively physically untouched by WWI so many of their structures are the oldest in Europe because they didn't have to rebuild as much like other countries did.
Find more info on the photos in the trips pages.
Link is on the main Page.
We hopped off the bus for the last time at stop number one, Kilmainham Gaol. .
The thirty minute tour was simply not long enough to do this site justice. Not only did this jail house hundreds of prisoners over its time but it is also the execution site of 14 of the Easter Rising leaders.
We ended our tour around 4pm and made it back to the apartments around 5, shortly after which I fell asleep. Still trying to get my internal clock on the right schedule. But it was fine because I had to wake up at 5am for our next adventure...
...The Cliffs of Moher and Galway
We were so proud of ourselves for booking a tour on our own, although Irish Day Tours made it super easy on us. We actually have another one scheduled on Tuesday while we have no class. One of the best parts of this tour (although the whole thing was pretty amazing) was simply getting to be on the bus and watching Ireland go by as we drove from one coast to the other.
Our first stop at the Cliffs of Moher took us around 4 hours to get to. The walk up to each side of the cliffs is quite steep and slick, and we even saw a woman in stilettos walking up toward the top!
On the right side as you're approaching the cliffs from the visitor's center is O'Brien's tower. It stands near the highest point of the cliffs (around 702 feet) and allows you to climb two flights of a small spiral staircase up onto the tower from which there is an absolutely amazing view of the cliffs. Over to the left you pass some friendly cows on your way to the trail's end where you can take a look at the other side of the cliffs.
We got a chance to spend a short hour and a half here but what we saw was absolutely amazing.
After the cliffs we headed to the seaside town of Galway - we only really had time to look around on shop street but it was such a fun little town and we definitely want to go back for some of the live music and night life.
We returned home around 8 pm, two very tired travellers, looking forward to a day of sleeping in.
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