On my fourth day in Ireland, it was time to head out on the next part of our Tour Of Ireland. Joseph and I packed up and cleaned our cute AirBnB, left our bags at the door, and decided to visit St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Luckily, it was right around the corner from our AirBnB. St. Patrick’s Cathedral was founded in 1191 (yes, 1191!). It is not only the national church of Ireland, but also the tallest AND largest Church in Ireland. Oh, and it is beautiful.
One thing I have never understood about the UK is the fact you have to pay to get into a cathedral. In France, every cathedral and church is free, which I definitely got used to. When I visited London as a poor college student I was shocked at how much Westminster Abbey cost to go inside. St. Patrick’s isn’t as steep as Westminster Abbey, luckily only 6 Euros, just for future reference for those of you interested in checking it out. We were running short on time and needed to go pick up the rental car, so Joseph and I decided to pass on touring the inside.
Next, we hopped in a taxi and what a small world, it happened to be the taxi driver who took us to the Kilmainham Gaol (which we didn’t get to visit…) the day before. He was super helpful and informing us how to get out of Dublin and onto our next stop, Galway! Currently, Dublin is under major construction downtown. They are working on a rail-system or tram-system that has just torn up downtown Dublin. Only taxis and buses are allowed in certain parts of the city and where we need to go goes right through the heart of that area where private cars aren’t allowed. We got to the car agency, Sixt, to pick up our transportation for the next couple days. Somehow I convinced Joseph to do all the driving. You see, I haven’t really driven a car in five years, after living abroad for four and Chicago for one. I have never really had to drive. You expect me to drive on a foreign country on the OPPOSITE side of the road? Heck. No. And yet, I somehow convinced Joseph…what a guy!! 🙂
We set off back to our AirBnb, only getting lost and turned around a handful of times. Thank goodness for Google Maps. Seriously. I bought a sim card with data when I first arrived in Ireland and this thing saved us so many times. We picked up our bags, said goodbye to Dublin and headed on the road to Galway. Galway is about 2 hours and 20 minutes from Dublin via car. Ireland, and Europe in general, have a TON of roundabouts, something we do not have a lot of in the US. Our first one only got us honked at by a semi truck (oops!) but we Joseph learned the rules of the road quickly. He did a fantastic job – I probably would have been crying the whole time to be perfectly honest.
Joseph left me in charge of taking photos and navigation (jokes on him!) while he drove. After a pit-stop for lunch, it was pretty much smooth sailing to Galway. Stay tuned for more on Galway and #ErinGoBroad!
