Galway

Ireland's west-coast festival city, out where the Corrib meets Galway Bay — birthplace of the Claddagh ring, the hands-and-heart band still made in the fishing quarter it's named after. Trad sessions spilling out of the Latin Quarter pubs, wood-fired pizza and oysters, salt air off the Atlantic, and Connemara and the Aran Islands at the door. Small, arty, and always raining a bit.