Our European Holiday | Final One!

We had two more days in Ireland and although we were feeling ready to be on the same time zone as our little people again, we were also thankful and ready to make the most of our last two days away.  We had a fantastic experience with the Galway Tour Company the day prior, and decided to book another day trip with them, this time through the Connemara National Park region and the famous castle, Kylemore Abbey. 

Connemara is a region known for its vast expanse of rocky mountains, tiny fishing towns, rare Connemara ponies, and its "forty shades of green."  Apparently, Johnny Cash took his wife June through Connemara years ago and he was inspired to write a song about its beauty.  Connemara is also one of the largest Irish speaking regions in the country and is known as being rich in traditional Irish culture and living.  Exactly the kind of experience we hoped to immerse in during our time in this pretty country. 

Beau and I loved Connemara as much as those epic cliffs the day before.  We were blessed with another beautiful day, and loved exploring the countryside, learning about the history, and taking in the beautiful scenery around us.  There were mountains, valleys, stone bridges, beautiful fjords, and of course, so many sheep!  Sheep are allowed to graze anywhere in this region, and it was so funny to see random sheep on the very tops of mountains, all by themselves.  We started to understand all the "wandering sheep" analogies from the Bible after being in Ireland. ;)  Beau and I also became quite good at pano shots and plan to make some big prints for our basement walls someday soon!

We also spent a couple of hours at Kylemore Abbey, a beautiful castle that sits deep in the woods, at the base of a mountain, and in front of a glassy lake, creating quite the place to explore.  Kylemore Abbey was built by a man named Henry Mitchell for his wife, Margaret, the love of his life.  They raised nine children there before Margaret died a tragic death.  The castle was later turned into a school for Catholic girls until just recently.  The castle is open for viewing, but my absolute favorite part of the castle grounds was the unbelievable brick-walled garden.  I could have spent all day in this courtyard admiring the herbs, flowers, and vegetables just starting to sprout.  It was peaceful and beautiful, and I decided I would like to be the head gardener at a castle someday.  Or at least picnic there with my family. :)

Other stops along the way included a big monastery that reminded us of something filmed in Braveheart, and beautiful Cong, a little town in Ireland completely surrounded by water, where the John Wayne film, The Quiet Man, was shot.  

We rolled back into Galway around dinner time, and spent another night on the town in a pub called The Quays.  Instead of Irish trad, there was a cover band of cute boys singing Mumford and Justin Bieber in Irish accents, aka, amazing.  We met a fun couple from New Orleans, learned the words to both versions of the song Galway Girl (one made popular in the movie P.S. I Love You, and the other most recently by my beloved Ed Sheeran), and discovered that McDonalds' fish sandwiches and orange drink taste much different in Ireland than in the States. :)  

We spent our last day in Ireland in Galway, and it might have been my favorite day of the whole trip.  Without a single plan in store for our Saturday, we played like locals and hit the town square early to explore the large outdoor market.  We ordered Irish coffees and sat streetside, watching a Galway girl dressed in green dance in her clogs.  We bought souvenirs for the kids, walked around the bay, and perfected our Irish accents (or in Beau's case, he just perfected his pirate).  Then around lunchtime, we discovered our favorite pub of the whole trip, our favorite bartender, and the allure of European "football", aka, soccer in our book.  We sat amidst college kids and other football fans, discovered what a little black currant syrup would do for a Guinness, and cheered on Manchester City advance to the semi-finals.  We also gave plenty of advice to our bartender friend who was moving to New York City in just two weeks.  He had plans to find a bar-tending gig somewhere in Wall Street, meet his dream girl, and see places like LA and Miami.  He had a sparkle in his eye when he talked about it all and it was a joy to share our favorite parts of home with him.  We told him Iowa is beautiful in the summertime and what NFL teams to root for.

     
I can see why Ed Sheeran wrote a song about a Galway girl.  There was something special and unique about the people we met during our four days in their city.  There was a genuineness that felt so real to us, a spark for wild, but a groundedness in the simple things.  Vacations have this way of putting everything in such perspective, slowing down to really see and appreciate and dream.  We did all that and more during our not-so-little holiday away, ready to take bits and pieces of it all and bring it back home to our biggest, and favorite adventure of all.