Our trip through Connacht was focused on an overnight visit to the Aran Islands which are reached by ferry from the vicinity of Galway City, so we took a fairly direct route that allowed time for some nice walking and investigating this interesting city. It has some well-developed canals running through it and weirs that supported water mills.
The ancient stone walls and fortifications are more massive than any others I have seen in the British Isles, including those left by the Romans.
I vividly remember how impressed I was in 1956 with the cheval-de-frise protecting the front of the fort. The rear of the walled area falls directly into the sea so it needs no such barrier.
At this end of Inishmore, the cliffs are nearly as high as the Cliffs of Moher, and their tops are rougher.
As the weather was continuing gray and wet, we started back towards our hotel but took the southern route through rougher and less populated country. From the many small fields enclosed by dry-stone walls to the rocky soil to the concrete water tanks for collecting rain, it was obvious how hard life is on the Aran Islands.
Our 11 miles walking in wind and rain with no lunch proved exhausting, but the experience was completely worth our pain. Back at the hotel, we had beery wait for a wedding party to vacate the restaurant, but the eventual meal proved very satisfying. And in the morning, we were driven back to the harbor, a nice perk!
The rest of the day we spent driving north to Donegal, mostly along the Wild Atlantic Way. Scenery was often beautiful but we were slightly sceneried-out. We did stop in Clifden, a town so touristy that it possesses a seaweed spa! And then it was further along the coast where we discovered another prehistoric remnant, the Ceide Fields Heritage Site, where the oldest stone-walled fields in the world date back 6000 years.
