Driving in Ireland

I have to admit that my strong navigational skills were really put to the test on this trip and it left me feeling pretty frustrated.  I take a lot of pride in knowing where I am on a map and how to effectively get from Here to There.  We were good walking around Dublin, but our first day in Galway resulted in a crazy adventure on wee country roads that I did not intend to be part of our route.  From that moment on, I felt some doubt about what google maps was telling me and about my own skills in getting us to our destination without mishap.  Part of the challenge was that there are no real "highways" in Ireland.  Their major roads are M/N routes, but these rapidly turn into A roads and then into B and R roads, each more narrow and windy than the previous ones.  Rather than having roundabouts at every intersection like most of Scotland and New Zealand, they have a mix of traffic lights, stop signs, left and right exits, etc, so you are never quite sure what is coming up and what instructions to give the driver.  Scott and David were very patient, but I'm sure they were a little frustrated just like I was.

A lovely 6 lane, wide, smooth highway as we started out to Galway.

Didn't take long before it narrowed to four lanes outside of Dublin.

Severe bend ahead - a good portion of the roads we experienced could be labeled like this consistently

Many European cities have impressive bike lanes, but this was a pretty big intersection with a complicated set of pedestrian and cyclist lanes and traffic lights.  Not nearly as many cyclists as I've seen in other European countries. 

One of the things we found fascinating were the "traffic calming" signs that we saw as we passed through various villages along the drive.  Charlene finally looked it up and discovered that this is a national initiative to make drivers more aware of pedestrians, cyclists, and other traffic hazards as they enter residential areas.  Not every one has a slower traffic speed, but they have a number of design strategies to make drivers take more care...

Trafficking calming designs:  raised curbs (sometimes with pedestrian crossings) and blue arrows pointing to these features.

This had to be one of the straightest stretches of road we saw the entire trip.

Trafficking calming designs: Lines along the shoulder narrow, giving the impression of the road narrowing (although the paving stays the same).

Most of the signs were pretty straightforward, but this one kept making me chuckle.  Many Irish words do not look remotely like an English word, but slow = mall in Irish, so Go Mall was funny to me. 

We had some navigational challenges throughout the trip, but this highway intersection in Belfast takes the cake.  The directions in google maps look straightforward, but when you look at the actual highway signs on the road, they are far more complicated.  None of the labels on google maps matches what you see on the signs, or the signs have a lot more options/details than what you see on google maps. When moving at 50+ mph, you pass an exit and its too late...rerouting, rerouting...oops, too late to make the corrective turn...*%$#!