Galway & Connemara
Connemara, in the west of Ireland beyond Galway, is the country at its wildest and most romantic: a vast, sparsely peopled landscape of heather-clad bogs, mirror-still lakes, the quartzite peaks of the Twelve Bens and a ragged Atlantic coastline of white-sand coves and stone-walled fields where Irish is still the everyday language.
Its most beautiful sight is Kylemore Abbey, a fairy-tale neo-Gothic castle reflected in a lake beneath wooded mountains, with a famed Victorian walled garden. Galway city, the gateway, is a joy in itself, a colorful, bohemian harbor town of cobbled lanes, pubs ringing with traditional music and a famous food and festival scene.
Touring Connemara is to feel the soul of the Irish west, scenic, soulful and gloriously remote. We love it for the way the drama unfolds at every turn, from the lakeshore at Kylemore to the Sky Road at Clifden, with time built in to linger over the views and the welcome.
