G-G-Galway

Havent posted in a lil while, would say sorry but as of yet - no followers, which I suppose is okay for now.

I was away the last two days in Galway, a lovely Irish town on the west coast of Ireland. Its such a different town/city compared to my native city Limerick. There just seems to be a great buzz about the place, that one would be hard to find in any other part of Ireland.

Stayed at the Clayton Hotel, just opposite the famous Galway Racecourse located at Ballybrit. Got a great deal, and stayed on the exclusive fourth floor in an executive suite. Had our own living area, with this wall placed in the middle of the room, it was there to break the room up between bed and living area, the nice feature it had was a mirror/television that would rotate, so you could watch the TV in bed or else look at yourself in the mirror, whatever takes your fancy. Seeing as I am a TV head I opted for the former. Bed was a huge king size bed, and was extremely comfortable. Bathroom was something special, it had a large built in shower, that was walk in, and a separate bath. My stay also included fully inclusive breakfast which was out of this world, both in quantity and quality, which was handy as we had planned to go to the beautiful Kylemore abbey and we did, including a slight detour (thank you garmin) but eventually arrived in Kylemore. €12 isnt a bad price at all, except my girlfriend was a little disappointed with the amount that we could see in the actual castle, basically three rooms  which was a bit of a let down. The Neo-Gothic church is always quite good having been recently restored. Also there is a walled garden, which is just something you have to see, the lovely smell of turf coming from the Bothy and head gardeners house is lovely (although one of the visitors close by didnt enjoy it as much as us). There were herbs and veg, and fruit, as well as one of the longest flower borders in Ireland. Apart from the amazing scenery, that is all to do there ( I would have uploaded photo's but havent gotten around to that yet) but it was a really enjoyable day in lovely fine Irish autumn sunny weather.

On Wednesday night we dined in Fast Freddys, an Italian type diner, I had the Stromboli pizza, which was absolutely amazing, with baileys cheesecake for dessert. The other half had a Mexican pizza, with sweet chilli sauce, jalapeno's and chicken, was equally as good as mine, infact we would have both swapped if we wanted to. She had the banoffee for dessert, which was freshly made and equally delicious. After dinner, we headed for a drink in the Front door, and then home.

Thursday night, and we dined in Martine's just two or three doors down from Fast Freddy's on Quay st. where a large percentage of the restaurants in Galway are. It was also simply to die for food. I had a starter of chicken goujons with salad, while Peg had thai mussels in a lemongrass sauce. For mains, I had the lasagne with garlic bread and homemade hand cut chips. Peg had fillet steak skewers which were nice, but not as nice as my dish. For dessert, we had nothing, shock horror, we couldnt decide on one not to mind two! So we headed to Fox's porterhouse (recommended by one of the girls in Martine's) had two mojito's while Peg had two Cosmo's, and they were as good as we were told, perfect way to round off dinner. From there we decided to chance going to Halo (unfortunately for us, it was closed) so we headed to CP's where as was told to me last week would make you feel rather old and full of kiddies! Two drinks later and we were gone, and decided to head back to the front door again. It was great, good music, great drink and great company as we got talking to a few locals and we had a great night there.

Today, Friday we didnt make it up for breakfast and had to check out at 12, but I think we needed the lie in. We decided we would head to the city for a while, to do a bit of retail therapy (although Peg certainly filled both our quota's haha) and at this stage we were hangin for a bit of food, and Peg had said she wanted to visit McDonaghs (Quay St.) who also won an award for best casual dining in Connacht. Past customers have been John Locke from Lost and Gerry Adams! They must have known the place was good, because the fish and chip were unreal! Had a portion of curry and mushy pea's too - simply nothing like it, and the place must have been the busiest in the whole of Galway.

If whoever reads this, then I hope you havent been let down and it hasnt been too disjointed, enjoy your weekend.

Peace out,
McLove