I have to apologize, I misspelled Dungarvan in everyone of the photos that were posted in the last blog. I'll do better.
After time spent in Dungarvan and Waterford, we made our way to Cork. We visited Cork on the shore excursion, The Best of Ireland, while aboard the Norwegian Jade on our journey to the UK. We weren't sure if we would be able to make it back to Ireland after we began our house/petsits, but we had a ten day break in the schedule. We stayed at a quirky place called the Redclyffe Inn. There was a festival happening in the schoolyard outside our room which incidentally was on the 4th floor. We were in walking distance of downtown Cork. We visited the Sin e' to listen to a group of musicians play Irish trad music. Several other musicians asked to sit in while we were there.
Before making our way to Cork, we stopped by Blarney. We didn't stop to kiss the Blarney Stone; we had already crossed that one off our bucket list. We stopped to shop at the Blarney Woollen Mills store. We had stopped there on the shore excursion and I had wanted to buy a traditional woolen article, but decided to wait until we had visited Scotland. I didn't find what I wanted in Scotland, so we came back to Blarney Woollen Mills. I found a beautiful sweater in an unusual shade of green that I bought. Chuck found me a long hooded sweater vest in a cream color. I know that I will get lots of use out of both. While on our way to Blarney, we saw several vintage cars on the roadway. Chuck asked the local garda (police) if there was a festival or antique car show nearby and one was the next day in a a village called Coachford. We really enjoyed the Coachford Family Festival. There were many vintage vehicles from yesteryear, but there were also many from more modern times and even some from the 21st century. I was fascinated with the alpacas which were advertised as great watch animals, but the one thing I though was the most fun was the Women's Tractor Build. A team of women worked together to build a running tractor from scratch. It was really amazing. Within 10 minutes, these women had a running tractor!
After Cork and Coachford, we traveled to Limerick. Limerick, by far, was my favorite of the Irish cities we visited. We could walk everywhere. Our hotel was close to the River Liffey and we spent quite a lot of time walking there. The Locke Bar was recommended to us by a local as the place to get a traditional Irish meal, hear Irish trad music and see trad dance. We were not disappointed. On the way back to our hotel, we heard music coming from a pub. We decided to investigate and found The Cauldron. I don't think we've ever met a friendlier group of people. We even had a song dedicated to us. The music was lively and we had a great time listening to those guys play.
We spent a day exploring King John's Castle. King John commanded that it be built, but he didn't live long enough to live there. From the castle, there are many amazing views of Limerick and the River Diffey. We also enjoyed a meal at the Chicken Hut. Chicken tenders, fries and gravy, what could be more delicious? It reminded me of the chicken tenders you can get at Dairy Queen. Chuck had chicken reminiscent of KFC, which we've seen everywhere we go in the UK and Ireland. As we walked the streets of Limerick, we stumbled across a couple of young entrepreneurs selling periwinkles and dillisk. Chuck bought a bag of each to try. The periwinkles were washed, then cooked. To get the periwinkles from their shells, you had to use a straight pin. The dillisk is seaweed that has been washed, then cooked in salted water and dried. I had the dillisk, while Chuck ate most of the periwinkles. When in Limerick. . .
After leaving Limerick, we visited the Cliffs of Moher before going to Galway. The cliffs were absolutely breathtaking. The weather was what we expected: rainy, cold, and very blustery. The photos we took do not do justice to the Cliffs of Moher, but we took lots anyway.
After a couple of hours at the Cliffs of Moher, climbing a very treacherous path to view the Cliffs from a different perspective, then visiting the visitors center to dry out a bit and to learn the history of the Cliffs, we made our way to Galway (pronounced Gallway). We stayed at Number 10 B & B. We weren't able to make contact with Paula, the owner, when we arrived so we did the next best thing: we drove into Galway and had dinner at an Italian restaurant. We finally caught up with Paula, got the keys, then settled in for the night. The next morning after Irish porridge, we hitched a ride into Galway with Paula. Galway is another wonderful Irish city. It was very crowded due to the arts festival. We loved wandering around the cobblestone streets. We also took the hop on/hop off bus tour. It's a great way to learn about the city you're visiting. There were so many wonderful street performers. Chuck recorded several of them, but in my haste to download the photos we had taken, I unfortunately deleted all of them. It made me a little sick to my stomach to have lost all of those. I have learned to copy those to a folder on my laptop first before I edit the photos in Picasa. Our last day in Galway, we had dinner in a wonderful little hole in the wall call The Pie Maker. Chuck and I split a pie with sausage, black pudding, roasted red peppers and leeks. We shared a Banofee pie for dessert. After our meal, we headed back to the B & B. We needed to pack for our return to Dublin the next morning to catch our flight to Manchester. However, we couldn't get the key to work in the door to our room. We ended up calling Paula. Finally, after an hour or so, one of the neighbors was able to get us into our room. Hallelujah!
