County Cork

The View From My Beer

Today’s visit was so exceptional it warranted two views from my beer. The view above is a pint of Murphy’s stout taken in colorful Kinsale at the Grey Hound Hotel (not to be mistaken with the Greyhound Hotel – different type of dog!). The view below is a pint of Guinness at the Blarney Woolen Mills. I learned today there are three major brands of stout in Ireland. Guiness is the more bitter of the three. Murphy’s is the sweetest. The third, Beamish, is somewhere in between. Where in between is something I will have to establish with some research another day!

Cork

Stop number two on my 14-day cruise around Britain.

My Walk

Our cruise ship docked in the town of Cobh (pronounced Cove) about 22 km from Cork. I will be returning to Cobh on another cruise, so I decided I would take advantage of the nice weather and visit nearby Blarney Castle. On my return I will spend time in the city of Cork. I took a bus tour that included a two-hour stop at Blarney followed by a further two-hour stop in very pretty town of Kinsale for lunch. The bus also took us to Charles Fort, just outside of Kinsale. The day was so spectacular I took over 250 photos, which I am still trying to cut down to a more manageable number.

I ended up taking a three beautiful walks today. The first was through the large gardens that surround Blarney Castle. The second was in the town of Kinsale. The third walk was around Cobh after the bus dropped us off.

Blarney Castle

A visit to Blarney Castle was my goal for the day. And while it was well worth the visit, what I didn’t realize was that pretty much everything else on today’s agenda was going to be equally special. The line to Kiss the Blarney Stone was about an hour, so I opted instead to use that time looking around the castle and the gardens that surrounded it.

Blarney Castle Gardens

Being a bus tour, I didn’t have any expectations of getting a nice long walk in at all today. As it turned out, I was able to get in a spectacular one-hour walk through the large gardens that surround the castle. This is where the photo count started to rack up!

Blarney

I had enough time to take a quick walk through the town of Blarney, before finding a place to enjoy a pint of Guinness – candidate #1 for today’s view from my beer.

Charles Fort

Kinsale

Before today I had never heard of Kinsale. Our bus driver mentioned we would be taking a 2-hour break there for lunch. It seemed long for a lunch-break. But then I found out why we were allocated so much time. As it turned out, it was probably not quite enough time as the town was simply magical with all its brightly colored buildings

Cobh