Cliffs of Moher - Galway Day 2!

On our second day in Galway, we decided to do a day tour of the Cliffs of Moher and the Burren. The tour bus picked us up in front of our hostel and then we met up with other people for the trip. We traveled through the Burren, which is one of the largest areas of limestone rock in Western Europe. The rock showed through all of the land, with grass only growing around it. Our first stop was at the Aillwee Caves, one of the oldest caves in Ireland, which has 3,400 feet of passages leading into the heart of the mountain that it is contained in.

Veronica and I in the cave.

This is a waterfall within the cave that has mass amounts of calcite build-up. Calcite seemed to be the only real mineral in the cave. It makes up the limestone rock that is within the Burren. (Yay for learning something in my Geology class last semester!)

The cave stop had a really great view of the Irish countryside. The bay is also in the background on the right side. (Andrea, me, Veronica, Mary Kate, Erica and Heather.)

After this we headed onto a pub where I had my first plate of Sheperd's Pie. (I know, it has taken me quite a while to have it, but it was delicious!) Then we stopped at a coastside area known as Blackhead, with an excellent view of Galway Bay. It was gorgeous!

Galway Bay - it was so windy my hat almost fell off!

And here are the seriously phenomenal Cliffs of Moher!

We climbed one of the cliffs to see everything - it was so beautiful.The Cliffs and me.

A couple of us then climbed up to a different cliff, too. This is the one we were on in the first few pictures! We were all the way over where the castle-type structure is on the top. It was too bad it was under construction.

The first cliff and I!

Our final destination was a stop at Poulnabrone Dolmen - a megalithic monument tomb that was an ancient burial site.

The day tour was such a great way to see these areas and definitely took its toll on us. (We had to bundle up to go - wearing multiple layers, hats, gloves, etc.) The whole tour was so cool, though! It has unanimously been named one of the absolute best things that we did by everyone who was on our trip.