A Mall By Any Other Name

We changed our plans a bit and booked a tour of Kylemore Abbey for tomorrow.  That left us at loose ends for today.  The rain had been falling in spurts and the wind was less blustery then it has been.  Earlier in the week we had talked about exploring the Salthill neighborhood where we are staying, so today seemed like a good enough time go.

Cooking white pudding for breakfast.

Looking at a map of the area on-line we really couldn't find anything that called out to us.  I did however see Westside Shopping Center.  It sounded close enough to Westfield Shopping Center to seem promising.  We checked the status of the rain and headed out.

Since we don't have phone service here or a mobile Wi-Fi connection we've learned to download a large area on Google Maps on our phones so we have a great portable map with turn by turn directions.  Very helpful.  You see so many things just walking around the neighborhoods and outskirts of town.

Either a school or a prison.  Just kidding it's a school.

Typical houses in the Maple Park neighborhood.

We made it to the Shopping Center...hmm yeah, not a mall.  We were really hoping for an American style mall.  This was more like a small strip mall.  It had a large Dunnes Stores (like a Fred Meyers), a butcher's shop, a newsagent, a credit union branch, and an appliance and lighting store.  So we ended up in a McDonalds to come up with a new plan for the day.

Sadly the plan was just to take a long round-about way home.  I say sadly but I am not really all that sad about it.  I needed a bit of a down day.  We had laundry and dishes to do and since we're touring tomorrow I wanted to spend some time packing and cleaning.  We take the train back to Dublin on Friday and head to the airport for our flight home.

The following are pictures we've taken on our walks around Galway and a few other places this week.

Heading into downtown Galway.

Old mill houses sitting on the canals around the downtown area

Maintenance work on a weir.  There were men fishing for salmon just downstream.

Jeff watching Irish football in the pub.

Looking toward the Galway Cathedral.  Built in the 60s, it just looks old.

These beautiful houses are in Cobh.  I just wanted to share the photo.

And this is actually in Dublin.  We saw it on the way to Kilmainham.

St. Joseph's church.

Townhouses on Nuns Island (I think. I lost track of where we were)

The only Free Mason sign I've found.

Entrance to Galway Cathedral.

Interior of Galway Cathedral

I don't know the Irish name for Pre-Fab but that is what these look like.

Typical street scene from our walk today.

We leave in less than 48 hours I am sad beyond words.