Day 13 (by Nic)

Day 13

Ok, I think we're at the point where I don't need to tell you that we woke up and had breakfast. You can just assume that if we don't say anything than that's probably what we did. Of course if anything extraordinary happens than I'll tell you. Basically we've been having toast and cereal for breakfast almost every morning.

Anyways... we went on another tour today, this time of an area of land to the North of Galway called Connemara. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connemara ). Connemara is a big, somewhat mountainous, marshy region used mostly for raising sheep. I don't really know what to say about the region itself. A few notable things we saw were the Killary Fjord where the local Irish people raise mussels in the inlet of the fjord. We also saw several large rivers where our guide told us thousands of salmon migrate. They swim up the river in the spring and people come from all over to fish for them.

Our main stop was at Kylemore Abbey. I'm not going to put up the link until the end because I want you to hear about it first. It was built by Mitchell Henry as a honeymoon house for himself and his wife because they loved the are. It has had one other owner before the nuns who now own it. They are working, and have been working, to restore the great castle along with the 6 acre garden. The nuns ran a secondary school out of the building for a while before focusing strictly on the tourism aspect of the abbey just last year. The original owner Mitchell Henry also had a church built on his property to remember the loss of his wife. I might be getting some details a little wrong, but basically it was incredible! The castle, church, and garden are all in the late Victorian style, and extremely extravagant. We took a ton of pictures. It was just absolutely beautiful! I think it was Hannah's favorite part so far! Especially the garden. Although it wasn't in full bloom while we were there, it was still incredibly immaculate. Ok here is a little wikipedia link, and also the main link to the Kylemore Abbey website. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kylemore_Abbey http://www.kylemoreabbey.com/

Well, that's it for now. Oh, also we saw hundreds of sheep during the tour today. Yep. Alright, until tomorrow! Bye-bye.

Nic