My Switzerland Adventures: Ireland

Hello everyone! I am back in Switzerland after my holiday vacation and doing very well. I hope all of you had a happy holiday season with family and loved ones. I had such an unbelievable time in Ireland and London. For those of you that don't know, Europe was hit pretty hard with bad weather and heavy snow storms right before Christmas. This caused many people to get stranded at airports and put a hold on their holiday travels. This was even the case for some of my teammates who were traveling back to the states to visit their family; thankfully, Emily and I were not affected by the bad weather. Although, we did happen to get very lucky when our plane from Geneva to Dublin was the very last plane to land before the entire Dublin airport closed due to heavy snow fall.

Emily after getting off the plane in Dublin

Our next challenge would be getting from the Dublin airport to Galway, on the other side of Ireland. We had looked into all sorts of options for getting around Ireland, in the end, renting a car seemed to make the most sense. The funny thing is that in Ireland, they drive on the other side of the road and on the other side of the car. So, let's just say that we had quite the interesting car ride haha. Em did a great job!

Sunset driving from Dublin to Galway

Once we made it safely to Galway, we walked from our hotel into downtown Galway where there were plenty of shops, restaurants, and pubs. We hung out at a neat restaurant/pub called the Front Door, when it finally set in that we were actually in Ireland and ready for some exciting adventures to come.

Em and I in Galway with some handsome Irish lads

The next morning, we had an incredibly busy day of exploring ahead of us. We woke up early, got some coffee and breakfast on the go, and were off to see the Dunguaire castle in Kinvara, not too far away from Galway. This castle just happened to be on our way to one of our other points of interest, so we figured...why not? It actually ended up being pretty neat. The scenery around the castle was quite picturesque. It was so foggy when we drove up that we could barely see it. Then all of the sudden, the fog disappeared and we could see the castle perched on the rocky shores of Galway Bay.

Ready to start the day :)

Dunguaire Castle

Galway Bay, the surrounding area of the castle was so pretty!

I'm such a tourist haha

Next, we were off to see another thing that was on the way to the Cliffs of Moher. We didn't really know what to expect from the Poulnabrone Dolmen...We just knew that it was some sort of megalithic tomb. We got a little lost trying to find it, and when we did, our reaction was something kind of like...that's it? I guess we thought it would be a little larger, but nonetheless, it was still really neat considering it has been dated back to around 2500 BC.

The Poulnabrone Dolmen

Finally, we were onto our main point of interest for the day, the Cliffs of Moher. Thankfully, we had great weather, so it was perfectly clear to see the beauty of the cliffs. Emily had been anxiously awaiting our visit to the cliffs because she wanted to lay down on her stomach and look over the edge of the cliff. Now, these aren't some wimpy cliffs, they are steep and massive...Very impressive to the eye. I'm gonna admit, I thought she was a little crazy, but apparently its something that everyone says you should do if you ever have the chance to visit the Cliffs of Moher. We walked around for a while, exploring all areas of the cliffs, while trying to find a good area for her to look over the edge. We weren't very successful and we even tried talking to some people to see if they knew what we were talking about...of course they thought we were crazy haha. Anyway, sadly enough...Em never got the chance to look over the edge of the cliff. On the bright side of things, I'm happy that Em didn't fall off the side of the cliff and instead, we managed to get some pretty cool pics. I had some other pics from different angles, but due to the sunlight and shadows, they didn't turn out all that great. Unfortunately, the ones that didn't turn out were the steepest parts of the cliffs, but here are some pics of the cliffs that turned out well.

O'Brien's Tower

Cliffs of Moher

After the Cliffs of Moher, our next destination was the O'Dea Castle. Now this has special significance because Emily is Irish and her last name is Day, therefore it's her family's castle so it was a must see, haha. We got a little lost trying to find it, but what's traveling in Europe without getting lost?! We found it eventually, and even though it wasn't the most impressive castle we've ever seen, it was still pretty cool. We also stumbled across a neat old graveyard with some cool gravestones along the way.

Em at the O'Dea Castle

Us with the castle in the background

some neat old gravestones

Unfortunately, we started losing sunlight after visiting the O'Dea Castle which didn't allow us to see everything we wanted to see. We had tried to squeeze so much into one day that we didn't have enough time to see 2 other castles which were on our drive back to Dublin. We still decided to drive to each of the castles because we had already mapped out our directions and thought maybe they would be neat to see lit up at night time. Of course, the Portumna and Birr castles were not lit up at night. Its too bad because they both looked like they would have been really neat to see during the day time, especially the Birr castle. Well, trying to see these 2 castles did end up adding more time to our drive back to Dublin, especially because of the unusual snow fall. Also, our handy GPS decided to take us on a route that took us through the not so large mountains of Ireland, haha. But, these mountain roads were treacherous enough that the sign said "road closed ahead," yet we still decided to listen to our GPS. We were going up this mountain in 2nd gear the whole time because there was so much snow on the road. We never saw another car on the road the entire time, thankfully we didn't get in an accident or drive off the side of the road. We were so relieved when we made it to the main highway and eventually into Dublin for the night.

The next morning, we would have the whole day to explore Dublin. It was so cold in Dublin and snowed like crazy for most of the day. But, we managed to visit the Guinness factory, see some neat churches, visit Trinity College, and Dublin Castle, as well as explore the city. I even bought myself an Irish claddagh ring which symbolizes love, friendship, and loyalty and can mean certain things depending on how you wear it. Anyway, after a long and cold day of walking around, we stopped at place called the Brick Alley Cafe. The only reason we went there was because it had a volleyball sticker on the door, so we told ourselves that it was a sign that we had to go inside, haha. We were just going to get a coffee to warm up, but they had some specialty hot chocolates on their menu that we couldn't resist. I ordered a hot chocolate with coconut and hazelnut and it was so thick, like pudding, that it had to be eaten with a spoon. We both also ordered a scone too. My hot cocoa and scone may have been my favorite meal of the whole holiday trip haha! Later that night, we went out for a few drinks in the Temple Bar area of Dublin. The next morning, we had to be up early to take the ferry over to London. We had a blast in Ireland and were sad to leave, but so excited to be headed to London :)