It's still steaming...
Morning in Cork means a morning wandering around the city poking the interesting looking places. First of these is breakfast at O'Flynns Gourmet Sausages and our first real Full Irish. Suffice to say it was amazing and very good value. No need for lunch after that little lot...
Then on to the English Market. Don't ask why it's the English Market - I haven't the foggiest. Cool little place though, tucked in off the main street down a bunch of little alleys. We discovered O'Flynns had a stall there, so grabbed some more sausages for tea. Yum.
Took a stroll up the river to see St Finbarr's Cathedral. Beautiful place, with some brilliant carving outside. Thought about going in, but we really needed to get going so gave that one a miss.
Shame we didn't spend much time in Cork, really - looks like there are loads of interesting little things there. Alas, we had to go so it was back into the car and up the motorway to Cashel.
At the risk of offending any Irish readers, there are some stereotypes about Irish workmanship... Hitting roadworks in Cashel, getting stuck at a stop/go board for 10 minutes and then being invited to drive over freshly laid tarmac that had only just been steamrolled and was still steaming/smoking did rather enforce those stereotypes...
Which is odd, because I didn't see anything else like that in the entire 2 weeks we were there.
Anyway, we stopped in Cashel to see its famous rock. The helpfully named Rock of Cashel. Which sounds like it should be a castle and it isn't. It's a religious site dating back hundreds of years. Beautiful place, especially in the sunshine.
And look at the gorgeous carving and paintings in Cormac's Chapel - these are in the region of 900 years old.
And this is the oldest building on the site - a round tower from a few decades before the Chapel. A bit like how I always imagined Rapunzel's tower to look like...
Inside the more recent cathedral (by which I mean 6-700 years old), there are passages in the walls so the Bishop could get directly from his tower house (of which I have few pictures) into the church. Sneaky sneaky.
If you visit the Rock, I highly recommend you join one of the guided tours. They're included in the ticket price and as there are few if any info boards, they're a great way to learn more about the site.
History geekery satisfied, we set off again to Kilkenny. Which resulted in the inevitable comment "Oh my God, you Kil-Kenny." Oh dear. Onwards!
Just a dead sheep & a pull in
Had to make a quick run to the car park in Kilkenny the next morning to pay up the machine. It being before 8am, there were pretty much no people about, so I took the opportunity to wander up the hill to the cathedral. Unfortunately the gates were all locked up, but it was nice just to wander around in the quiet.
We spent the morning at Kilkenny Castle, which is more stately home than fortress. Really interesting though and there's an exhibition in the attached Butler Gallery about the film The Song of the Sea, which was produced by a studio in Kilkenny. I need to see it - it looks amazing.
Then onto the craft centre across the road. Picked up a few more nice souvenirs for the family, including a lovely hand-bound notebook for my sister. Pretties.
Morning over, we set off for our planned afternoon stop at the early monastic site at Glendalough in the Wicklow Mountains. An hour after setting off, after passing the Bulmers/Magners brewery at Clonmel, the sat nav informed us we'd arrived.
OK, so it looks quite similar to the landscape I expected, but where's the monastic site? There's just a few sheep and a layby. Oh, and a dead sheep...
So I took a look at the sat nav. Wrong Glendalough. This Glendalough, which seems to be an area, not a site, is in Co. Waterford. Ours is in Co. Wicklow. So we'd just driven an hour in entirely the wrong direction.
Yay.
We did eventually reach the right Glendalough several hours later, me arguing with the sat nav the entire way. Glendalough the monastic site is very pretty and worth a visit but there's very little interpretation in the site itself. I expect there's more if you go in the visitor centre but we just didn't have time once we'd corrected the sat nav's mistakes.
Oh, Glendalough is also full of bus-trippers. Even near closing time.
Made it to Wicklow eventually and all feeling rather weary after the ridiculous detour, dumped our bags and made straight for the Bridge Tavern across the road where we had a lovely meal and Claire and Gemma got free pudding because the chef forgot to give them vegetables with their main courses. Hurrah.
Time to go
Well rested (save for the drama with the toilet refusing to drain...) our final day in Ireland began with a trip to the Mount Usher Gardens. We had very little time so after a lovely breakfast at the cafe there (mmm, cheesy bacon toast...) we had a too-brief wander around the gardens. Lovely to see they had a eucalypt grove - reminded me so much of being in Australia - plus a gorgeous cottage garden style plot.
I resisted the urge to buy gardening things from the shop (are you allowed to take bulbs through customs?) and then we sadly made our way north back to the airport. Said a not so sad goodbye to D, our less-than-awesome Micra although in her defence she had managed to carry us over 2100km around the country without too many problems. Well, apart from the really crappy gears.
Anyway, made it to Dublin Airport in plenty of time for the flight, raided duty free for even more gifts (Butler's Chocolate, anyone?) and then home.
And that's it. Two weeks in Ireland. Magical is an awful word, but it really was magical. Even with the rain and the dodgy car and the hostels in the middle of nowhere. And there's so much we missed out on. Two weeks wasn't nearly enough. Already planning the return trip.
Hostels
Kilkenny, Co. Kilkenny: MacGabhainns Backpackers Hostel
Wicklow, Co. Wicklow: Captain Halpin's
Things to Do
The English Market, Cork (free)
Rock of Cashel, Co. Tipperary (7 euro)
Kilkenny Castle, Kilkenny (7 euro)
Mount Usher Gardens, Co. Wicklow (7.5 euro)
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