One of my favorites memories from our Europe backpacking trip is our Ireland Coast Road Trip. Our selected route started in Dublin (after spending three days there) and ended after dropping off our rental car back in Dublin.
Here is a map of the route we took around Ireland:
I wrote about our first day five days driving around Ireland here, here, here, here, and here. Today I’m sharing our final full day of driving in Ireland. Before this day, we spent a full day in Galway, and I’ll write about our time in Galway in my next travel post. For our last full day of driving in Ireland, we drove around the Connemara area with Sky Road and Kylemore Abbey included.
Connemara
The Connemara district is in the northwest part of Ireland. It has many peninsulas which offer an abundance of beautiful coastal drives. We stuck mostly to Sky Road, and our main stops were Salthill Beach (just outside Galway city center), the charming town of Clifden, and the stunning Kylemore Abbey. Starting from our hotel in Galway, we took the following route:
Salthill Beach
Just outside of the Galway city center is the peaceful Salthill Beach. Well, it was peaceful on a winter morning at least…. I bet it’s a bit more lively during the summer. The beauty of this beach doesn’t really show up in the pictures. We loved our short morning walk on the beach.
Clifden
I mentioned in a previous post that we saw multiple rainbows during our time in Ireland. The luck of the Irish, I guess! We saw another during our stop in Clifden.
Clifden is the largest town in Connemara and has lots of colorful shops and restaurants. We stopped in The Clifden Bookshop and grabbed a quick bite to eat at a cafe.
Rainstorm Picnic in the Car
For lunch this day, we decided to bring picnic food. A storm came in right when we wanted to eat, so we ended up doing a picnic in the car. We still had an incredible view for lunch!
The storm’s a comin’!
Our delicious lunch goodies from Galway!
Our view disappeared a few minutes because of the pounding rain!
Kylemore Abbey
You’ve probably seen pictures of Kylemore Abbey on Pinterest or just from browsing the web. The iconic photo of the Abbey from the parking lot (shown below) is all over the place because it looks like it’s right out of a fairy tale.
Today, Kylemore is a Benedictine monastery that was founded in 1920. It was built originally as a private family home by an English doctor named Mitchell Henry after he and his wife fell in love with the surrounding land while traveling there. Unfortunately, his wife only enjoyed living at Kylemore Abbey for a few years before she died of a fever she picked up while traveling in Egypt in 1875. His wife is buried in a memorial that is still on the grounds today. Henry sold the home to the Duke and Duchess of Manchester in 1909 before it was purchased by the nuns in 1920.
Because the building is an active monastery, you can only go inside parts of the home. They have the rooms you can visit set up as a private residence, and there is a lot of information posted throughout. You can also visit the Victorian Walled Garden (which is beautiful) as well as a little chapel and memorial a short walk away.
Kylemore Abbey is open all year and costs about $15 to tour the garden and home. It is well work the price!
Walled Garden
Inside the gardener’s home in the Victorian Garden. It is set up just as they expected it was in the past.
View from the front of the Abbey
Outside the chapel
Inside the chapel
Random Places Along Our Driving Route
See another rainbow peeking out of the clouds?
Click here to see all of my Ireland posts including our time in Dublin and various stops on our roadtrip.
I’ll be back soon with the rest of our Irish road trip!
{Click here to see all of my posts from our Ireland road trip. Our time in Ireland was part of a 2.5 month trip across Western Europe. Click here to check out all of my posts from this adventure!}
{Thanks for reading! Want to know a little more about me? I’m a CPA learning how to balance a career with frequent travel while planting roots at home in Austin, TX. When I’m not exploring my home city with my husband Daniel or cuddling with our chubby orange cat Banana, I’m probably planning, packing, traveling to, or daydreaming about our next adventure. After all, my travel mug collection is never complete. If you have wanderlust too, be sure to follow me on Instagram, Pinterest,Snapchat(emilya89), or subscribe to my blog!}
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