What a blessing to have a day with some breathing space. We woke up and Patti walked two blocks to the grocery store to get a little bit more food to make a big hearty breakfast. We ate great food, had a lazy morning and then went down to the main Square for a walking tour.
Our guide, Michael, was very accomplished, super funny, and filled with lots of good information about the city of Galway. We started with the central Square to hear some more about the basic history.
Galway city had a long and glorious history, going back to the 1200s. In Medieval times, there were 14 tribes or families of merchants who ran things in the city. And there were many other Royals and scoundrels who came in and out of the city.
One of the things of interest was in 1963. It was in this square that US president John Kennedy gave his speech. This was shortly before he was assassinated. Our guide told us that JFK was a shining beacon to the Irish about what immigrant families could accomplish. And that he grew up with his grandparents having a photo of JFK on their wall admits family photos.
A chunk of the current city had been inside medieval wall. Very little of that wall still exists, although a portion of it is inside a shopping mall. Our guide took us down to the bottom floor of the mall, and, surprise there was a wall. This was sort of thing that would’ve been very hard to just stumble upon on our own.
We saw lots of other things from the medieval and later times some manor houses from the 14 families. There were many other legends that our guide shared with us throughout the time, including one where the mayor of the town killed his own playboy son as a lesson. We enjoyed our tour and could really see how things were getting more and more busy with tourists for the art festival which was now well underway.
We walked down to the harbor and the Spanish Arch. And then we had brought with us lunch that Patti had bought at the grocery store this morning. We found a quiet spot to settle in look at the water and think about all of the history that happened here. We were happy to walk by some beautiful colored houses. And then we walked back through the Latin Quarter, which is now very very touristy and a pedestrian only street.
We went back to four apartment for a rest and to work on photos and do some reading. We walked two blocks to an art gallery that was part of the festival. We saw some nice textile art and paintings. And then, one more block to the grocery store for a little bit of food for dinner. It’s been so nice having a fully-functional kitchen at our Airbnb and we made a nice dinner and then headed off for the play.
The International Art festival focuses on many types of art including theater, and we got the last two tickets for the show that was a world premiere, Reunion, written by an Irish playwright.
Because we have the last two tickets, we were seated several rows apart from each other. Patti was in the second row from the front. This was a cleverly-written show, focusing on a family reunion on one of the western Irish islands. It was a large family and we watched them increasingly disintegrate. By the end, there really wasn’t a single happy family member and they all went home. Not exactly cheery, but it was a very well done production with a good set, fine actors and we enjoyed ourselves.
We were happy that we were only four blocks from our flat and quickly got home, and Dick launched into working on more photographs. The day before we had taken 600 pictures so there was a lot of sorting to do to get it down to a couple of dozen for the blog. Then time for bed.
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