Galway

The City of the Tribes, a walled Anglo-Norman merchant town on the edge of Gaelic Ireland that grew rich facing the Atlantic and trading with Spain. Its compact medieval core, the Latin Quarter, threads from the old market green past the finest surviving medieval townhouse in Ireland and a great sailors' church to the Spanish Arch on the harbour wall, where the fast river Corrib pours out to the bay. Across the water lies the Claddagh, the ancient fishing village that kept its own customs and gave the world its ring of two hands and a crowned heart, and beyond it the long seaside promenade to Salthill. Read the merchant city and its watery edge at your own pace.