Onto the bus nice and early this morning after a wonderful breakfast and we are off to Galway, which I am really interested in checking out as we will be spending 5 nights here after the tour. Again, the drive along the small roads of Ireland (not the motorways) was very beautiful, however as it is getting quite repetitive on how many sheep and cows we see, I have stopped taking so many pictures of them!
As we drove into Galway, it was very interesting that we drove past the B&B that I had booked to stay at. I took one look and realized that there is no way that we could stay there – it was obvious that the bedrooms were on the 2nd floor (North American 2nd floor). So I emailed them and again they said it was “only a couple of steps” to our bedroom. So I decided to try a different tactic and ask how many steps I would have to go up and down? The answer was 12. That in my book is more than a “couple”. Something to cancel and re-book on the horizon for me! Let’s focus now on Galway! We were met by a lovely lady who I am not sure if she likes Vinne, our tour leader or not, as she made some fairly comical comments about him. Nevertheless, she took us on a great walking tour of Galway, and while it was windy, the rain stayed away! Then we were on our own for an hour, so Anne and I went into the sweater shops (with the men in tow – not to their pleasure) to observe and then ended up in a music shop as they had Irish harps – which Anne has too. We both got a Music Sudoku book which is fun to do on the bus and then we got a spot of tea and used the toilets and we went to go meet the bus, when it started raining! We had to wait for the bus (and got wet) as Adrian had an issue getting back into the main part of town. Then we were on our way to Cong and the Lodge at Ashford Castle, where we would be spending the night.
Now that we are soaked and back on the bus – we proceeded to our hotel for the night – again in a country setting! We are only there one night though and off to Killarney the next day.
The Lodge at Ashford was a pretty pretentious place. As Vinnie explained, all room/tax and baggage portage fees are already paid to the hotel however the Duty Manager still got on the bus and announced that there is a 10 Euro guest fee per person, which we can decline at the front desk. We had dinner there and the dinner was a bit of a gong show from the kitchen’s perspective – they presented us with a menu that had only a few gluten free items and then when Kathy and I asked if the soup was gluten free without the bread and a couple more questions, they realized just how many Celiacs there were on this tour and they changed their menu to be more gluten free suitable. The funny thing is they took drink orders and provided the drinks but no one wrote them down, so the next morning, when we went to go pay at the front desk, they had no record of our charges! This was a 4 star property however the way they acted was not 4 star at all. Here are some pictures of our food – as it was good once verified it was gluten free!
After a fairly amusing conversation about the next day’s tour which includes a boat ride to view the Cliffs of Moher (and people who get sea sick), we went back to our room for an early start tomorrow!
Here is the drive we were on today – which surprised me when I looked at it as we actually went south to go north!
