Tuesday, September 19, 2017

September 16th – Grey and Gallic Galway

I've always thought that Galway was the most fun-loving city in Ireland. Pub life is always busy, the trad music here is the best of any Irish city, and the people are supremely friendly. Being here on a Saturday, I had a slight hope of finding a pub with some music on, but my search was fruitless. Several pubs had sessions that were starting at 5.30pm, but seeing as that was the time that the ship was sailing to Canada (and I didn't fancy a long swim!), I had to miss out.

However, you don't have to go far in Galway to find some music – about every 100 metres along the busy streets, there was someone with a fiddle, a guitar, Irish dancing, or even an excellent pop band (called Key West) promoting their upcoming Galway gigs with a wonderful alfresco show. The toe-tapping atmosphere was infectious.

If the streetlife was fun and lively, it needed to be. Because, the Galway weather was a fairly typical cold, grey and windy – the combination of brooding grey skies and austere grey buildings made you appreciate why the Galwegians need some vibrant music to cheer themselves up.

We did a tour of the main sights – visiting the farmer's market, St Nicholas's Church (it was nice to see that this Protestant Church had opened itself up to the Russian Orthodox and Romanian Orthodox communities), seeing the city walls, the Spanish Arch, the Museum, and visiting the huge Catholic Church.

But, Galway's not really about its sights as such – it's all about the atmosphere and the streetlife. What a great place to be our last sight of land, before we head into the Atlantic for the next 4 days!