Is it April yet?

It's hard to believe that in less than 2 months, we'll be headed to Ireland for our second tour of the country. We'll be spending the majority of our trip on the West Coast...

We'll arrive in Dublin on Friday, April 2--from there we'll pick up our car and drive westward across the country to Doolin. We'll be staying at a quaint B&B that came highly recommended from one of John's class participants (her family owns it!) While in Doolin, we'll tour the Cliffs of Moher, visit the Aran Islands and, of course, attend Easter Sunday Mass. Doolin is the Irish Folk Music capital of the country so I'm sure we'll run across a great live session in a pub.

(View of sunset from Ramblers Rest, our Doolin B&B)

On Monday, we'll head a little north to the (what we hear) awesome city of Galway. We're staying at a townhouse-style hotel in the city centre, so it should make exploring all Galway has to offer quite simple.

(Eyre Square Townhouse)

After Galway, we'll head north again and settle in Westport for an evening. We found a great B&B with awesome reviews that we just booked. Our plan for Westport is to enjoy the town and climb Croagh Patrick.

After Westport, we'll head back east to Dublin, where we'll spend the weekend. We'll do the must-see sights, including St. James' Gate and Temple Bar (which is also famous for it's traditional Irish music!)...and attend Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral. We flew in on a Sunday and out on a Sunday our last trip, so we didn't have the chance to attend Mass our first go around. It goes without saying that Ireland has some of the most amazing Churches in the world, so we're looking forward to that.
And while it's going to be difficult to be away from Lola that long, we know she'll be in the best of hands with ALL her Grandparents taking shifts and giving lots of love!