Saturday & Sunday, Aug 17 & 18 - Goodbye Dublin, Hello Kinsale & County Cork!

Saturday, Aug 17

Goodbye Dublin, Hello Kinsale! - Post by Carl

Today we left Dublin and drove down to Kinsale (County Cork)  It was my first time driving on the left side of the road, and sitting on the right side of a car to drive...While I was anxious at first, after a couple of hours I had it down....need to look right when turning left, etc., and focus being closer to the middle of the road...

We rented two cars (3 people in each for most driving) as this allowed us to pack all of our luggage both trunks and one side of the back seat of each car.

 This worked as planned, and we have two cars to make separate day trips if desired.

As we made our trip to Kinsale (approximately 2 1/2 - 3 in total length), we made a few stops...one of them was Kilkenny.  We ate a nice lunch at the Nostalgia Cafe and visited the Anglo-Norman Kilkenny Castle built in 1195 which stands on a strategic height over the River Nore.

Our next stop was the Viking city of Waterford where we toured the House of Waterford, home of the world famous crystal established in 1783.

We made it to Kinsale and stayed for the next few days at a cottaged called "The Church Cottage".  We unpacked the cars, drew lots for rooms, then  walked to the local SuperValu for groceries.  We enjoyed an app style dinner of cheese and wine.

Later that night, Vic, Carl and Dan sampled Kinsale's night life with live music at The White House and Oscar Madison's.  The ladies stayed back with the white wine and had a good time of their own.

Sunday, Aug 18

On Sunday, we enjoyed going to mass at "St. John's Baptist" which was only a couple of blocks away, and enjoyed the local priest give homily and get the feel of a true local irish parish.

We spent the remainder of the day touring Kinsale...some of us went on a walking tour of Kinsale where we learned that it was a very significant stratgegic port for the English Empire in the 1700s and early 1800s, and learned how the town was expanded from a local shale quarry to accommodate the amount of shipping required.  

Kinsale is also known as a cuisine city with good restaurants, and one we tried for lunch, Fishy Fishy, did not disappoint.  We enjoyed great oysters, salmon, fish pie, hake (a north Atlantic fish), and other tasty items.  

We also got a little visit from the local wasps, but the restaurant burns coffee grounds in sea shells to "smoke" them away...surprisingly it actually works...on the left is a little pic to show you...

 Later in the afternoon, Vic, Dan, and I hopped into a local pub named "The White House" and enjoyed watching "The Sunday Game", which was a semi final game Hurling Game of Limerick and Clare...Clare won (to some disappointment to some locals that were rooting for Limerick).

After the game, all of us went out to "Old Head" and saw some famous coastline and an amazing golf course..it would be great the play there, but with 200 Euro greens fees ($270 each) it will need to wait ;)

We enjoyed the remainder of the evening making "Toasteds" - baked/toasted sandwiches normally served in pubs in Ireland, and then we ventured to another recommended pub, "The Spanierd" where we hoped to catch some local music, but it was already done when we got there...

We then made plans for the next day, with a trip to Cork and the Blarney Castle "Home of the Blarney Stone"...our post to keep on catching up is forthcoming!

Thanks for being patient with us as we blog the trip...we've have been having mixed success finding places with wifi and strong enough mobile data to upload pics and update the blog.