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Two weekends ago it was very nice and we stayed in Limerick, visiting the town centre and walking amongst the smokers.  This past weekend we decided not to settle for the Limerick town centre but instead to venture to the Aran Islands.

Several things stood in our way: rain, rumors of a hurricane heading toward the British Isles, and more rain.  The forecast predicted a rainy Saturday all week and it was spot on.

At 7:15 in the morning (on a Saturday!) we got on the bus to the Limerick bus station.  We rode the next bus for two hours until we got to Galway.  With an hour to kill before getting on the next bus I wanted to find a pub so we could try some Irish Stew once we got back.  It started raining, of course, and we instead went to Galway’s underground Eyre Center Mall.  The first two pictures below show one of the flower stores and a big wall.  Apparently Galway used to have a big wall surrounding it.  Like all good capitalist nations, they built a shopping center on top of it.

We rode a third bus out to the ferry port before finally getting on the ferry.  We walked over to the ferry, hopped on, and picked seats by the window.  That’s when things got interesting.

I should mention at this point in time that Katherine sometimes experiences motion sickness.  By ‘sometimes’ I mean on every bus, every boat, and most van rides she’s been on.  This was no different.

Remember the rumors about the hurricane?  There were no gale force winds, but the seas were a’rockin’ Saturday afternoon.  Click here to hear how Katherine was feeling.

We got to Inis Mor, the big island, just in time.  Katherine regrouped and we headed out into the rain.  I had initially planned on walking around the island, or renting bikes, since it’s not a very big place.  Due to the rain, however, we acted like most good tourists and let the first guy we saw sweep us into a van.  A tour van.

The tour guy took us to Dun Aonghasa, an iron age fort.  In fact, it’s one of the best-preserved forts of its kind in Europe.  The island inhabitants built these stone walls around 1500 B.C. next to the cliff edge and lived within its domain.  Over time the walls were added to and expanded, and by Medieval times the forts were pretty extensive, but abandoned.

Anyway, we trudged up the hill to see this fort.  There are no railings of any kind a la Cliffs of Moher, and visitors are free to get the very best pictures they can.  The really good pictures below are taken by me, Mr. Danger.  The best views, however, were on the way down the hill when the ocean could be seen on both sides of the thin island.  If it had been a clear day we could have seen the other two islands as well as the waves crashing against the shore.

There were a few shops with Aran sweaters in them and an ‘Aran Sweater Market’ by the docks.  These sweaters range in price from 30 euro to 150 euro.  They were not for me.

We saw the ‘Seven Churches,’ a cemetary where some of the headstones are more than 2000 years old.  The van driver did eventually deliver us back to the port, unharmed.

We got back on the ferry and I fell asleep.  Katherine, though, was sitting right next to some Swiss wanna-be thugs (high-school students dresssed like rappers) who repeatedly acted out seasickness for everyone on the ferry to hear.  They made this sound frequently.  Wonderful.

Once the ferry got back to the main land there was no bus waiting for us, just one for the Swiss kids.  30 rainy minutes later our bus arrived.  When we got back to Galway we ate some Papa John’s pizza (there wasn’t enough time for Irish Stew) and got back on the bus to Limerick.

We’ve seen most of the sights in southwest Ireland.  Next week we’re going to London and Paris before Mom arrives.  In November we’re going to Berlin, Dublin, Venice, and Belfast to see the Giant’s Causeway.  The pictures will be wonderful.  The adventures will be grand.  We’ll have lots of craic.