Wandering Around Galway with Kids and Teens

I was a little flummoxed by the lack of things to do in Galway during the planning stage of our trip. While Dublin was full of art galleries and museums of all sorts, tours, cathedrals, historic sites, Galway seemed to mostly have pubs and quaint medieval streets. I kept thinking I must be missing something, but, after actually visiting Galway, I don’t really think I was.

Galway is a city made for wandering. It’s also, I understand, a city made for music and beer, but our day trip in didn’t really lend itself to seeing that side of things, sadly.

We thought about buying tickets for a hop on hop off type bus tour, but ultimately decided against it because Galway is a very walkable city.

After doing some reading about the parking situation, we decided to park at the paid lot by the cathedral, and this worked out well. I can’t remember what time we made it to town, but knowing us it couldn’t have been too early, and we found two spaces fairly easily. From the cathedral, it’s an easy walk to most of the big touristy spots.

Like you can see the Latin Quarter:

And the Spanish Arch:

And walk along the river:

Stop by a playground:

and the Long Walk by Galway Bay:

We ate at (and enjoyed) Bótown Burgers:

and had excellent ice cream at Murphy’s.

There were a few places where we actually went inside (and I don’t mean to suggest there are just NO museums or historic sites in Galway….but overall they seemed less prevalent and less kid-friendly than in other cities we visited).

Galway City Museum

This museum, exploring the “archaeology, history, and sea science” of Galway is definitely worth a visit, particularly since admission is free. There are three floors of exhibits; we probably spent an hour and a half or so here, but you could spend longer if you take your time. There’s not a lot on the first two floors aimed at younger kids (this is a big part of the reason we didn’t take our time), but the third floor has an interactive ocean science exhibit (some of it has seen better days, but the kids among us still enjoyed it).

This creepy display has something to do with ocean pressure or something, I think:

Fishery Watchtower Museum

Abe spotted this tiny museum as we were walking and really wanted to go inside, so we did. Another free (donations accepted) museum; this one tells about the building’s history as a…well, as a fishery watchtower. Someone used to be stationed up there to keep an eye on the river and illegal fishing. Now it’s a nice way to learn a little history and see the river from a different perspective:

St. Nicholas’ Collegiate Church

This is a VERY old (1320!) church in the medieval part of Galway. Visitors are welcome, so we went inside and looked around and caught a choir practice in progress. Apparently I felt too awkward to take any pictures inside, but it was pretty!

Galway Cathedral

I was surprised to find out that Galway Cathedral–that big, lovely building where we parked our car–was only completed in 1965. And its aesthetic has always been a bit controversial.

I guess I’ve seen more exciting buildings from the outside, but the inside at least was beautiful. Visitors are welcome when masses aren’t going on, and admission is free but a 2 euro donation per person is requested. I was less shy about pictures in here:

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