I have split up these blogs by the cities we visited while in Ireland. So there is one more blog to come.
The next morning in Kilkenny we got up and went down for breakfast. At breakfast they start off by bringing a little tray with a smoothie or juice shot, irish soda bread, and croissants. We both wanted to try the waffles so we decided to each order something different and shared. This was a really delicious breakfast.
We then finished packing and loaded up the car to head to Cork City.
This was a 2 hour drive. We got to the city and checked into the hotel. We were both hungry so we walked over to the English Market to see what that was about. I got a Toasted loin of bacon, scarmorza cheese with onion marmalade sandwich. It was so yummy. He got a chicken sandwich with a tarragon mayonnaise, this was also good. This place was really cool with all the stalls and different foods.
We then walked around and checked out the the city. We stopped and got some ice cream from Murphy’s. The ice cream we got was a chocolate whiskey. It was so creamy.
There was this cool store that took a picture of your eye and then made prints of the image. This is mine and the fiancé’s eyes together with an explosion technique added to it. I thought these were so cool!
Talking with the people at the eye place we were talking about where to eat for dinner. One of the places they suggested was Oliver Plunkett’s. I got a spice bag for my dinner and it was so good. It is basically fried chicken pieces, onions, peppers, and fries with a sauce on top. It was so delicious. There was a band playing and they were singing more modern music, more from the 90s then anything else.
Heading back to the hotel after dinner, seeing everything lit up was so pretty. There are so many little streets and alleys to discover here in Cork.
In the morning we got up and went downstairs for breakfast. That chocolate croissant was really good.
I took a picture of this switch in the hotel. Most of the hotels we stayed at had these. So basically you had to put your key card in the slot to access the electricity in the room. I thought this was so ingenious for conserving energy.
We then headed to the must see Blarney Castle. This is where some of my ancestry is from. It was so interesting to see how they lived back in the fifteenth century. I felt a sense of being home here.
There was a whole poisonous garden with different plants and little plaques that explained how the plant is poisonous. And yes that is a marijuana bud, which I thought was interesting. I took so many pictures of the different plants but did not want to bore you with all the pictures and some of them I couldn’t remember which plant was which.
Heading through this entrance it felt like you were entering through a portal. Everything through here felt like a fairytale. There were plaques that explained all the areas. There was a fairy garden, a huge table, witch stone, wishing stairs, witch kitchen, a dolman, and the seven sisters standing stones.
Walking back up to the castle we found this cave. This was a passageway for people to escape from attacks. It was so muddy down there that we did not go to far in.
Heading back out to leave, there was so much more to see on the grounds but it was getting late. You could definitely spend most of a full day here. In the gift shop I bought this beanie. I am so glad I got it, it was so cold in many places after this. We went across the street to a little pub and had a drink and a sandwich. I must have been pretty hungry as I did not take a picture of the sandwich.
We drove back to the city and walked around checking out some of the little shops and fun things. This donut was really soft a fluffy, and it wasn’t as sweet as we have here in the States. The statue is of the onion seller. I am not sure on the story of this one but I liked the statue. There was this little metaphysical store that looked straight out of Harry Potter. There were so many businesses with the McCarthy name (this is my heritage). The last statue was a memorial to the men who fought and died in the Wars of Ireland.
We ended up deciding on pizza for dinner. This pizza was was pretty spicy and the dough was so soft. There is something about the bread over in Ireland. It is soo good! The fiancé had a sweet tooth so we ordered room service.
I really loved Cork. There was so much to see and not enough time to see it all. We are definitely wanting to go back and spend more time here.
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