Europe Adventure Part 1: Ireland
Our five year anniversary is coming up on August 2, which is pretty crazy! Since our Europe adventure was kind of slated as our "5 Year Anniversary Celebration" now seemed like the right time to recap our amazing 16 days in Europe. So amazing that we even looked into switching our flights to stay an extra 4 days until we had to be home for work and other commitments - spoiler alert, we didn't. There's this thing called money and lots of logistics involved, so we stuck to our original plan. So I'll tell you all about our trip and not think about the extra four days that could have been.
We started out our trip in Ireland, and although it was pretty chilly and rainy, we saw so many beautiful sites! We flew into Dublin and spent the first half of our first day there eating an amazing Irish breakfast at Wuf and touring the Guinness Storehouse - the first of many pints of Guinness while in Ireland. Since we were spending most of our five days in Ireland on the west coast, we rented a car. Now, if you know anything about driving in Ireland, they drive on the left side of the road, and the driver's seat is on the opposite side of cars here in America. So you can imagine the stress of driving into major Dublin rush hour traffic trying to make it to the city center and find a car park (isn't that such a more pleasant term than "parking deck"?). Nick only drove on the wrong side twice and we made it through stronger than ever. Early afternoon we decided to start the three hour journey to Donegal and get settled into our adorable AirBnB. We tried to get dinner at a very small local restaurant and pub, but their chef was out so they weren't serving dinner - I kind of love that.
While in Donegal we drove to the cliffs at Slieve League where it was super foggy and we could hardly see a thing. However, when we were about to leave the fog lifted just a little so we could see some of the cliffs! We had lunch at a wonderful old restaurant where I had fish and chips (one of the many times) and a pint of Guinness. Nick had a lamb stew that he says was probably his favorite meal while in Ireland. We spent two nights in Donegal and then made our way to Galway - and being an Ed Sheeran fan you bet I was constantly singing "Galway Girl" in my head. One of our friends had described Galway as the Nashville of Ireland because there was live music everywhere. It was so neat to have music on the street while walking to dinner. We stayed in an AirBnb right on the edge of the city and it was the perfect location. While in Galway we drove an hour to take a ferry to the Aran Island of Inis Mor and that was hands down my favorite day in Ireland. We rented bikes and rode all around this traditional island. We toured a pre-historic fort with some major cliffs, and my adventure loving husband jumped into a nature-made pool where the Red Bull Cliff Diving Championships were held a few years back. It was such a calm, peaceful, and sunshine filled day (which was a welcome change).
Our last full day in Ireland we went to the Cliffs of Moher, because you can't be that close and not go. Of course there were people everywhere because it is a major tourist attraction, but the cliffs were incredible. It was extremely windy that day, which was not super comforting when walking on the edges of cliffs with no railings. I was that person as far away as possible because I had irrational fears of being blown off the side! After a couple of hours there we started the journey back to Dublin to spend the night before flying out early to Switzerland the next day. We walked around the Dublin City Center one last time and got dinner at a cool burger spot. We had gotten so comfortable in Ireland - the people were so friendly, we had the driving and navigating down pat, and we had grown used to the weather. But it was time to move on - next stop, Switzerland! All the details on our Swiss adventure coming up next!
