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Published: April 5th 2011
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English Market
The smell is just wild, a mix of fresh seafood and cured meats and cheeses. After a lovely sleep in Kilkenny at Auburndale and another delicious breakfast, we decided to head out to the Rock of Cashel. Since we got massively lost the night before in Kilkenny we decided to forego the castle and just move on.
As we were driving through the Kilkenny – Cashel Scenic drive we came across a ruin of a church just outside of Rathmoyle on the way to Freshford. It looked just like a ruin from the side of the road – then as we got closer and looked inside, it had been in ruins for some time. A huge tree was growing right through the middle of it. It was also swarming with very large blackbirds. Just another example of how around every bend there is some sort of piece of history that is just spectacular.
Out of nowhere the Rock of Cashel just appears and is just gorgogeous. It was incredibly windy there and under construction with lots of scaffolding on the outer walls. However, even with the scaffolds it was just amazing. It was just amazing to look out and see the land that surrounds the rock. Also, we had read that the best views of the
castle are from Hore Abbey. So we went down there hoping that the view would be free of the scaffolding, it was not, but still quite a site to see.
Then we headed on to Cork. We got into Cork city around noontime, so we walked around the city, which is the second largest city in Ireland but has a decidedly different feeling than Dublin. We went looking for the English Market, which has been in use since 1788 and recently been named the top 10 food markets in Europe. It was fantastic. I was beyond thrilled at the price of Parma prosciutto which was 5 Euros a pound!! We also got some very stinky cheese which is made in Cork called Durrus. It was pretty cool to see the different way things are presented and sold compared to the States. We also walked around the Merchants Quay Shops we needed to get Chris a tie for Zoe’s baptism and of course, I needed to pop into lots of different shops. I found another Oasis store and so we went there and got another lovely dress. We also went to a childrens store and got Zoe a really cute little
Downtown Cork
I am a big fan of this place...quite fun. dress. Overall I thoroughly enjoyed Cork City although I will say the locals were a bit difficult to understand. Something to do with the lilt they use…but all in all it was great!
We then headed into Cobh which I was really excited about since both my great grandparents left from Cobh, we walked around for a bit and went to the Queenstown Story which I thought was great. We showed up and they were getting ready to shut it down for the night – but they allowed us in at a discounted price since we would only have 45 minutes to see the entire exhibit. I was so glad we had gone because they had some really neat displays of the ships and what the quarters would have been like for most of the Irish who traveled. They also had some really interesting facts and artifacts. They had a lot of things about the Titanic and the Lusitania as well since they were such important pieces of history.
From there we went to our B&B which we were nervous about. There are only three B&B’s in Cobh that are covered by our Journey through Ireland travel vouchers and the
Watching Football
All the locals were stopped to watch the final minutes of the Manchester United game one that had been recommended when called said they were not a B&B for the 2011 season. So we went onto ours up a gigantic hill called Mount View – it overlooked the gorgeous St. Colman’s Cathedral, we got there and the host met us and she was nice enough. She took us outside and showed us our room, it was a converted garage! I was so disappointed since we stayed at such a lovely place the night before. This was a total bummer, I was so shocked. We went into town and got dinner at the Waters Edge Hotel and happened to enquire about room vacancy and they had one, so we went back to the B&B and packed up and left and were so glad we did. The Waters Edge Hotel was really nice, the room overlooked the water and the girl at the front desk was just great. I would definitely stay there again if we were ever to return to Cobh.
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