It's always vegetable!

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Geo: 51.7064, -8.5233

Woke up once last night, but at least it wasn't 2:00 a.m. It's so quiet here, and my room was really dark too, so I slept very well. Decent water pressure in the shower this morning, but only about a minute's worth of hot water. It's really amazing how cold cold water can be; it's not invigorating either: it's shocking!

There were plenty of choices for breakfast, including scrambled eggs, scrambled eggs with cheese, scrambled eggs with fish, and several fish dishes. I opted for the buffet and just got soda bread, cheese and a rolled up crepe thingy that had ham in it. Tasty.

We all met at 9:00 to go on our walking tour of the town with Don Herlihy. We walked essentially the same route we walked last night with Declan, mainly because there's not many other places to walk. We learned that Kinsale was a strategic shipping port fought over by the French and the Spanish and, naturally, the English. England couldn't have ruled the waves without ruling Kinsale. Two of the biggest ships in existence at the time (1500s) were built in Kinsale, but the forests of oak around the town were decimated in order to build them. Additionally, the Lusitania was torpedoed by a German U-boat just off Kinsale. Kinsale used to be considered the end of the world because it was the farthest west point that any European knew of.

When the history tour was over, we trooped back to our B&B to freshen up so that we could take the bus out to Charles Fort. When the British finally gained control of Ireland and by extension the port of Kinsale, they built two forts at the mouth of the harbor. I'm not clear on what happened to the first one (James Fort), but Charles Fort still exists, though in ruins. It's a star-shaped fort and was state-of-the-art when it was built in the late 1600s. Our guide, Padraig, told us the British Army occupied the fort until 1922 when the Irish gained their independence. But the buildings were torched and largely destroyed in 1923 by IRA forces to keep the fort from being used by Irish Free State troops during the Irish Civil War. It's rather a depressing place and probably would have been depressing even when it was intact. The ordinary soldiers were crammed into very small quarters, and only about six in one hundred soldiers were allowed to marry and bring their wives to live in quarters. A soldier wouldn't be given any extra consideration simply because there was another person living with him, except that he was given one more sheet that he could put up as a divider to give him and his wife a measure of privacy. His wife, meanwhile, had to earn her rations by working in the wash house cleaning the uniforms and linen for the entire garrison. At least they all had a lovely view over the harbor toward Kinsale town.

Half the group walked back to town with Declan (it's about a mile and a half), but it was quite cold and there was a dark cloud looming so the other half of us took the bus back to town. Katherine, Michelle and I went to Mother Hubbard's for lunch, a cute little cafe with four or five tables and a (get this!) Mother Hubbard theme. The soup of the day was vegetable, and I'm starting to think that the soup of the day every day around the entire country is vegetable. At any rate, I had a chicken panini and it was warm and toasty and yummy.

We wandered into a few of the shops in town, and I bought a scarf. It was made in India, but that's another “I” country, so I think that counts for something. We also stopped for homemade ice cream: mmmmm, hazelnut! One of the fun things about being part of a tour group is that we kept running into people we knew. In fact, I think we saw just about everyone else during our meanderings.

Back to the B&B to rest up before dinner, and I need to figure out a good stretch for my back, which is screaming at me. My feet holler too, but they are generally mollified once I sit down. My back, however, keeps whining. As do I, apparently!

The group met again at 6:25 and walked for three minutes down the hill to Crackpots, a rather elegant little restaurant. Katherine and I sat with Dave and Sue Anderson from Portland. Again, we were given a choice of starter, main and dessert. I had a salad of caramelized mandarin orange slices, candied pecans and goat cheese (with greens, of course), sirloin with a sort of potato cake, and a warm chocolate brownie with red berry compote for dessert. Everything was so good, and I don't feel stuffed to the gills either.

Sue and Dave take in puppies to socialize and obedience train for a year, after which they are sent off to guide dog school. I can't imagine having to give a puppy back!

We're on the road again tomorrow, and I don't know what the wi-fi situation will be for the next three days. I'm going to be sorry to leave my lovely big room, but I do hope there's hot water in the morning. Or at least quite-warm-indeed water.

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