Well we survived the roads and made it to Westport in one piece.

We picked up the car around 11 am and instead of struggling to find food in Dublin we decided to stop somewhere along the way and just set out towards Westport. In order to avoid going through the city centre and a toll route we took a roundabout way that had us twisting and turning on teeny tiny roads with lots of sharp corners. We finally made it to the highway with no toll and I calmed down a little. The scenery was absolutely gorgeous. We stopped in Enfield for a quick lunch, and arrived in Westport around 3 pm. The highway was a funny experience, it ran through lots of little towns so the speed limit kept changing from 100 to 50.

Westport is adorable. The b&b we picked is above a pub but very quiet and well kept. After we checked in we went back out to the Main Street with all the shops and our very first stop was a pub. Go figure. Matt Molloy's is owned by a member of The Chieftains so of course we had to go in. After that we wandered down the street looking for food and found another pub that served the 2012 and 2013 winner of the chowder competition for all Ireland. It was incredible. We also ordered what we thought would be a small bowl of mussels and ended up getting 25-30, caught this very morning. After stuffing ourselves we kept wandering around and as the shops started to close down a little after 6 pm we went back to our room for a little break (read:nap). Around 845 we stepped out again in search of food and live music. Dan was like a little kid on Christmas morning listening to the music!

Westport is a little more touristy than I expected but it's still very beautiful and it didn't feel crowded, just busy.

Thought of the day: pub shock! We went to four pubs in one day and that wasn't even all of them in this town. It's also very common to see little kids in there at all hours of the day. Some of them also don't serve food, just drinks.