Moving On

Chari is leaving tomorrow to join a tour with some other friends, a tour she had arranged before we met last summer.  How fortunate for me that she'd already planned a tour here and was agreeable to coming a couple of weeks early to stay in my home exchange with me.  She and I travel beautifully together and I've loved her company.

While Sean and Mary graciously offered me their home for up to a month, and though I thought when Chari left, I'd head off on some other tour(s) or go into Dublin for a couple of weeks, I've changed my mind and will just stay four days after she leaves.  I'll be here finishing cleaning up the house, then take a train to Limerick for a couple of days.  Once there, I'll be a hop, skip and a jump away from Bunratty Castle and Folk Park, as well as the medieval town of Adare.  If I want to tour the Cliffs of Mohr, I believe the coach ride from Limerick is much shorter in duration than the one from Galway.  Better for my back.  (There's just nothing like my own car seat which is adjusted to every bend and crick in my back or my own furniture, so carefully chosen to fit me with my short legs.  Not to mention my own bed.  And feather pillows.)

It's a very good thing I travelled (with and without my son) as much as I did in my 30's and 40's.  I won't be one of those seniors who said, "When I retire, I'm going to travel..." only to find medical issues prohibited it when I arrived at that age.  The bloom rubs off the rose when knees ache after much walking and knots in the back proliferate on hard beds.

We spent today getting rail and bus tickets, doing last-minute shopping, having lunch down in Galway City for the last time, and cleaning house.

(Click photos to enlarge.)

O'Connell's, Galway's oldest pub

This is, IMHO, the quintessential Irish pub.

And one of Galway's oldest dogs, it appears.

Where we had lunch today.