Galway- 27th till 29th September

Two locations for the price of one with this post!

Our first stop was Galway, and as we were feeling lazy - pretty much all we did was have a bit of a walk and go out to lunch. The restaurant was called Kai, and it is owned and run by a nice kiwi lass and her Irish husband.

We stayed at Salthill, which is a small seaside town on the outskirts of Galway.

Salthill - a nice contrast between the kids jumping in sea in the background, and the rather more sensibly dressed gentleman in the foreground.

Galway town square, and one suspicious person wearing a panda hat.

Our lunch at Kai restaurant. We considered just staying there and drinking our way through to the dinner service, but we were a bit full.

Galway Cathedral.

Our 'American Beauty' moment - these bottles are sitting in a whirlpool, and every now and then one of them would go nose down start spinning at top speed (as per the red one). Curiously fascinating.

My awesome beard. As we don't have a mirror over the handbasin in the van, and I'm obviously not shaving at the moment - I don't look in the mirror very often. I'm always slightly surprised when I do.

Our next stop was in Knock. Knock is very famous amongst the Godly for being the scene of an apparition of Mary, St Joseph, and St John the Evangalist in 1879. The gable end of the church where the apparition was seen has reportedly been responsible for hundreds of cures over the years. I can vouch for this, I had a 'floater' in one of my eyes (an annoying floaty speck), and it now seems to be gone. Which is grand, because it was annoying and had been there for a while.

The site now has several churches, a shrine, a huge basilica, museum and various other related buildings. This will sound disrespectful, but the closest analogy I can think of is that it is kind of like a religious theme park. It is all very tastefully done though, and even though I am not Christian myself, I could certainly appreciate the spirituality of the place. It was also quite a unique site, we haven't seen anything quite like it before. Over a million people visit each year.

The Basilica - it is HUGE!

This is the gable wall of the old church. It has been boarded over because so many people took samples of the render (for cures) that the wall became structurally unsound. The things hanging on the wall are crutches which people have left behind after being cured.

This cross marks the spot where Pope John Paul II gave a speech on the centenary of the apparition. 500,000 people turned up to hear him speak.

The new shrine that is on the site of the old gable wall where the apparition was.

Inside the shrine.

No cleavage, no muffin tops and no battlers.

This is a segment of the old gable wall where my miraculous cure occurred.