May 6, 2013 - visiting the leprechauns

Cobh (pronounced Cove in Gaelic) is the port for Cork, the third largest city in Ireland. The port lies in a huge, protected bay and is the second largest deepwater port in the world after Sydney, Australia. It was the departure site for many ships whose names have gone down in history - the Titanic being the best known. The Lusitania also left from here along with zillions of starving Irish fleeing the potato famine years. Prison ships left here for Australia, taking many of England’s poor thieves to a better life if they lived through the...

Jan 9, 2013 - Cork and Blarney Castle

Monday, 7th. Left Galway to head down to Cork, Ireland's second largest city. Primary reason for going to Cork is to visit Blarney Castle. However, Cork itself has proved to be a destination in its own right. A very vibrant, cosmopolitan city with a large student component. Our first night was spent at a B&B, the Blarney Stone Guesthouse. We only stayed one night (check out the photos on the website). That's not to say it was a bad place to stay. The owner was very friendly and helpful, and the breakfast she provided was one of the best we...

Aug 28, 2012 - Cork City

Hotel: Clarion Hotel (Cork City) Clancy’s Bar and Restaurant for dinner and music/dancing Tim explained how he spent 2 hours “naked” (read as: without headphones) because Henry wasn’t snoring the previous night Men explore the bathroom We stayed inside at the bar (Rafferty’s) for some music and dance lessons Beth is spun around quickly to learn the Peter and the Goat dance

Aug 17, 2012 - Day 6 (Thursday) - Now I understand what the f**k Bono was singing about

After we finished breakfast, we walked around Kilkenny a little more, and saw the handful of things we didn’t get to see on Wednesday, such as St. Mary’s Cathedral. Then we went into a drug store for “supplies to last us on the drive to Kinsale. Cathy and I have discovered that our new favorite soft drink is something called “club”. It’s basically citrus soda with orange pieces in it, and it comes in diet form, but only in the orange flavor. Still, it’s pretty good. I wish they had it in the states. We ended up taking a different route to...

May 22, 2012 - Cork - The Base Point

Although Cork is the second largest city in Ireland, I found it to be the most boring of them all! It's a very beautiful city, with loads of historic buildings, brightly coloured shops, and the River Lee. We stayed at the Kinlay Hostel and got a private room with four beds! It was heaven since we've been sharing rooms with at least four other people. Unfortunately, there wasn't much to see and do in Cork... Granted I was only there for a night. We used it as the base point for Blarney Castle. We did however, stumble upon the Heineken...

Apr 20, 2012 - Ireland - Kilkenny & Cork

14th April 2012 (Bed No 15) This morning we headed off to Cork via Kilkenny. Arthur realised that the radio code needed to be re-entered, due to the mechanic disconnecting the battery. The radio manual did not have the code listed, bloody Spanish!! While in Kilkenny we found a Ford dealer who for €25 retrieved the code. Arthur is now happy, we have music! We had a brief look around Kilkenny (took a 1 hour guided tour) and back on the road to Cork. What a beautiful town! A trip to the tourist information centre and we were given lots of...

Mar 7, 2012 - Food

I woke up today at 10.00 when my mother woke me up. We went straight down fore some breakfast. At first, we got some tea, bread and serials. But a few minutes later on the landlady come in the room full of plates with sausages, white beans, eggs, white pudding, black pudding and racures (Racures is the Irish way of making beacon as we do it in Sweden, cut it in small pieces and then frie it. If you say beacon in Ireland, they think of a big piece of beacon that you boil in a saucepan for about 2 hours). In this country they eat a lot of...

Sep 15, 2011 - Cork

Waterford was a nice town, a smallish quaint Irish town and before leaving this morning we visited the spectacular and famous Waterford Crystal store. Filled with an amazing multitude of crystal sculpture and ware the beauty of the pieces is truly remarkable and needless to say, expensive. From Waterford we travelled west and south following along the coast of the Irish Sea and Atlantic Ocean. Very beautiful country of sweeping panoramas of seascapes and hillsides of differing shades of green looking like quiltwork. An easy drive but I am...

Aug 20, 2011 - Cork

After our hike of the Dingle Peninsula we journeyed to Cork by bus. A delightful picturesque city, and very walkable. The only challenge was the camera case velcro cover going on 'vacation'. The ensuing encounter with the sidewalk 'altered' the camera's 'focus'. Actually it bent the camera body such so that the lens would no longer extend, thereby rendering continued picture taking problematic. Bummer! But, being in ever friendly Ireland, we spied a lad exiting from the commercial docks area. Upon explaining the situation and asking him if...

Jul 28, 2011 - Cork

The bus trip to Cork just confirmed that Ireland is the sterotypical image of rolling green hills, farm houses, and crazy gaelic speaking locals. Cork was somewhat uneventful and yet brilliant. We passed our time at the butter museum, ringing the bells of St. Anne, watching an irish movie (The Guard, very funny, you should see it), and wandering the streets of Cork.

Jul 27, 2011 - Cork, Ireland

Cork, Ireland Cork turned out to be an easy stop… we had planned a light day, but the weather made it even lighter! We were here before on another cruise… so were planning to get a taxi from the port town of Cobh (pronounced Cove) to Cork which is about 20 min. away. It was a pretty sail-in and the weather looked like most of the past few days… cloudy and cool. We ate breakfast outside and talked about the plan for the day. After breakfast, it started drizzling… and was still drizzling when we left the ship. The drizzle turned into a steady...

Jun 5, 2011 - Cork

The 3rd we jumped on a bus to Cork to take a look around. We arrived and the sun was out there as well! We decided to do the self catering thing again to save some money so headed out to the main street for a wander and some grocery shopping. On the 4th it became apparent that Ireland was in the middle of a heat wave - it reached 25C! We walked out to the old gaol and did a tour before walking back into the city for some lunch and a pint at a proper Irish bar. We spent most of the afternoon outdoors enjoying the sun while the locals cowered...