Erin Go Bragh: Connemara and Cong!

Today I took a day trip to see Connemara and Cong! Connemara is packed with beautiful sights and Cong is a little town on the way that is famous for being in the movie "The Quiet Man" with John Wayne. After a late night out in the pubs, it was definitely a little difficult getting up at 9 am! (I'm not sure I've been up that early since I've been in Galway!) The early wake up call was well worth it. I was blown away by the beautiful lakes, most particularly Loch Corrib, which seemed neverending! We basically circled around the lake for the day and that alone took 8 hours! The first stop we made during the tour was to the Ross Errily Friary, which I'm pretty sure is the oldest friary in Ireland. It was huge and entirely made out of stone! It was fun wandering around the friary and seeing all of its little nooks and crannys! The next stop was Cong, where we saw the village of Cong and Cong Abbey, which was much smaller than Ross Errily, but still very pretty.

After a few stops along the Loch Corrib and a couple of gorgeous pictures later, we made our way to Kylemore Abbey, which started out as a castle, but was later turned into an Abbey. Even though we had to pay extra to be able to see everything, it was so worth it. The Abbey itself was gorgeous and the inside was so ornately decorated. It is set right on a lake with the mountains of Connemara as a view- definitely something I wouldn't mind waking up to! With a stone-walled garden, a neo-gothic church and a few other sites on the surrounding land, Kylemore Abbey was definitely magnificant!

It's definitely lots of fun traveling around Ireland and seeing how different each part of the country is- and I've still only explored the West coast! We're planning a trip to Dublin for the last weekend of February and hopefully I'll make a few more trips before then.