Connemara Bus Tour
Kylemore Abbey, as viewed from across the lake.
The bus tour of Burren and the Cliffs of Connemara the day before was so good, my friend Jihye and I decided to take a second trip the very next day. We found a Lally's bus headed for Connemara and hopped on, recognizing two other passengers from the tour we took the previous day.
On Saturday the four of us had been on the breathtaking Cliffs of Moher bus tour. Having done two tours in a row I have to recommend taking at least a day's rest in between. Spending much of the day in a bus seat listening to driver narration does get tiring.
The bus took us through interesting Irish landscapes of glacier carved limestone, streams, and great hills littered with sheep. We saw several peat bogs which, nowadays, are mostly dug using machines though some farmers have stuck to the old ways of working the land. You could see chunks of peat lying on the ground, drying out as the bus followed the winding road through Connemara.
Mussel farming in Killary Fjord
We passed the famous Leam Bridge, known as "the Quiet Man Bridge" after the 1950's film starring John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara. We also stopped near waterfalls and fjords to take pictures but the most interesting part of the trip was Kylemore.
After a quick stop in Oughterard we drove up along the only fjord in Ireland, Killary. In the waters here you could see long, straight lines of floats joined by ropes. Apparently, these were mussel farms. From the floats, weighted ropes dropped into the water and the mussels would seed on them. Once they've matured, the mussel farmers will pull up the ropes and remove the mussels.
Kylemore Abbey
A Monkey Puzzle tree in the Victorian Walled Gardens
The driver stopped for two hours at Kylemore Abbey, a fairytale place with a beautiful abbey, a neo-gothic church, and a Victorian Walled Garden. The remarkable buildings are on a footpath which walks along the edge of a small lake and the whole area is surrounded by forest. I'm sure if the weather had been nicer, sun would be streaming through the trees and birds would be chirping, etc. Disney, eat your heart out.
The abbey was built in the 1860's and its interiors were lavishly decorated. It had ornate doors and furniture, a huge fireplace, large paintings, and super old-school wallpaper. Even the ceilings were decorated with complex moldings. The dining and living rooms were very fancy and the latter had an old piano and a phonograph.
The ornate furniture and lavish decoration inside Kylemore Abbey.
A short walk away is a church built in the neo-gothic style. It had quite a high, vaulted ceiling and the stained glass windows were impressive. Walking toward the abbey we could look through the mist across the lake to see the old church hidden amongst the trees.
Also in Kylemore, you can take a short bus ride to the nearby Victorian Gardens. The garden was huge and divided into several sections including the main formal gardens, the green houses, and a fernery. The formal gardens had a monkey puzzle tree which of course I was delighted to see. I've actually seen a fair number of them since arriving in Ireland.
Bus Tour Review
It might be that I was burned out from doing bus tours two days in a row. It might be that the weather for the Burren tour was so much better. Either way, I didn't like the Connemara tour as much.
The Lally's bus driver didn't seem to have as much knowledge about Connemara as the Healy's driver did of Burren. There were also some technical difficulties with the microphone audio and the music cutting out from time to time. However, I think the content made the big difference.
The back-to-back bus tour troopers back in Galway after taking the Burren tour on Saturday and Connemara on Sunday. Phew.
There were more interesting things to see on the Burren tour the day before and it featured two walking tours: Aillwee Cave and the Cliffs of Moher. The Connemara tour only had the stop at Kylemore Abbey and outside of that, most of the photo opportunities were just streams and little waterfalls. Not as impressive as the megalithic tombs and castles from the Burren tour.
Anyway, I still had a brilliant time because of the people I met on the previous tour. Unlike Saturday, I had some one to talk to and didn't have to do all the sightseeing solo.
