You don’t realize how long it takes to travel until you have to experience it yourself. On Tuesday, we had 3 connecting flights to reach our final destination in Cork, Ireland. Our first flight was delayed by half an hour as well as our second flight, but otherwise we did not experience any setbacks as far as flights are concerned.
Our first day in Ireland was adventurous, tiresome, and a tad confusing. We landed in Cork, Ireland around 10:50 am. to the brisk hot summer air. After passing though customs and collecting our belongings we headed to pick up our rental car, which we thought would be rather straight forward. You see, there was some confusion as to where we had to go in order to pick up our car. We got a bit lost, asked for directions, got lost again, and then finally found the pick up counter. After some discussion, paperwork, and the swipe of a card, we headed outside to drive away in our white hybrid vehicle.
I am not the one driving the rental car here in Ireland, but I can wholeheartedly say that I am grateful that my sister has taken the responsibility on. It has taken some time to get used to driving on the other side of the road with all of the roundabouts. The roads are very narrow and the Irish drivers are rather aggressive. Nevertheless, these obstacles did not deter us from seeing a piece of Cork for ourselves. We headed to the bed and breakfast we were going to stay at and the owner offers us some advice on where we should go and how to get there.
We first visited the cork city center and walked around the mom and pop shops that are sprung about along with many shops that are familiar to us back in the states. As we perused the streets there were a few musicians that we playing along the sidewalks, a few who were actually pretty good.
We walked through a market where people sold dry pasta, fish, red meats, and other foods which I could not name. The one thing I remember about this market was the smell of the raw meat that filled the air. It was rather pungent because it was pretty hot in the market itself.
Our last stop in the city center was starbucks. We did not bring anything to drink with us and going to Starbucks seemed like a safe bet to us.
After leaving the city center we popped back to the bed and breakfast before heading down to the area of Kinsale. We first stopped at Charles Fort, a massive Fort along the water. It was quite beautiful to gaze upon the massive structure with the backdrop of greenery and the water. We walked along the perimeter of the property and further up near the main road where we found a small cemetery with old headstones of varying sizes.
Our last stop of the day was to the main town area of Kinsale, a harbor town lined with boats. We walked along the water for a short time before picking up fish and chips at a place called Dino’s. Overall, the food was good for the price.