April 9 - Seriously, who eats that, But What if there's a troll in the cave, and This Room is Freezing!

April 9 - Seriously, who eats that, But What if there's a troll in the cave, and This Room is Freezing!

This morning we woke up excited to explore the countryside around Cork. We breakfasted in our hotel, and I had Irish porridge for the first time. It was so good! We had toast and eggs and porridge, all washed down with lots of coffee and tea. It was really yummy! After finishing we walked down into the old part of Cork to the English market. The market has been there since 1788, and is actually the oldest market of its kind. The present group of buildings were erected the in the mid 19th century. We got there relatively soon after it opened, so not all the stalls were open. We had a great time wandering around selecting things for our lunch.  After much deliberation, we settled on fresh grapes and raspberries, a huge sandwich with sun dried tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and basil, and a huge bottle of San Pellegrino. The piece de resistance to our little meal was some truffles from a lovely little chocolate shop. We got two sea salt caramel and two Irish cream. Yum!!! Some of the things we saw in the market were definitely things we would not be eating - one of the butchers had lots of organ meats (pig livers, hearts, and kidneys) and they all looked absolutely awful!

With our prizes in hand we headed off to the parking garage, and after navigating the fairly well signed streets we were off to Ballycotton. What a fabulous name, right? Ballycotton is an adorable little town out on a spit of land, and it boasts a wonderful cliff walk as well as a lovely lighthouse. Oh my, was it beautiful there! We headed out on the cliff walk with grey skies and some serious wind. We were pretty chilly at first, but warmed up pretty quickly. The 5 mile trail (one way) hugs the coast line, ambling its way along with rugged rocky beaches below and some beautiful green fields above. The contrast of the colors was stunning, and we took loads of photos. One of our first detours was a climb down to one of the beaches. Covered in smooth pebbles, the beach had lots of tide pools and huge rocks protruding up out of the beach. It was pretty breezy down there, and we had a great time walking on the rocks and exploring. We found a little cave hidden in the rocks below the cliff, and Brandon said that we should go in it. For some reason, my immediate response was "but what if there's a troll in it?" because, as we all know, trolls are a normal part of Irish life?! Yeah, this made no sense. We tried to go in, but it ended almost immediately so our troll hunting trip was rather short lived.

We headed back up to the cliffs, and continued our way down the path. We found another little trail that went down towards the beach, but we didn't take it all the way. We did go down part of it, and the grass on it was amazing! It was so springy, it was just like a trampoline. I was bouncing up and down on it! Serious fun. I totally want a yard with trampoline grass someday (hint hint, Brandon). The next stop was a rocky outcropping that stuck out further into the ocean (called a headland) that we climbed out on. Wow, the wind was incredible up there!!! The views were amazing as well. After that we headed toward the town at the end of the path, called Ballyandreen Bay. There was an option to take a shorter route home on some of the roads, but we decided to take the cliff path on the way back. We were so happy that we did, as it was absolutely beautiful. The weather had cleared some, and we had some lovely views of the lighthouses. We both posted lots of pictures on Facebook of this.

After getting back to our teeny car, we were famished! The 10 miles took care of our breakfast, no problem. We dug into our grapes while driving back to the highway on the coastal road. After finishing those, it was sandwich time. The sandwich was wonderful - the baguette was perfectly crusty, the mozzarella obviously homemade, and the sun dried tomatoes and basil a perfect compliment to the rest. The raspberries were delicious as well, and then it was time for the truffles. They were amazing!!! We easily could have eaten loads more of them - good thing we didn't have any!

Our next stop was Barryscourt Castle, outside of Cork in a town called Cobh (pronounced Cove), but when we got there it was closed!! Apparently it doesn't open until May. It was 4:00 by now, so we decided just to head back to the hotel. While there, I took a nap and Brandon read, and it was really nice just to relax for a while as we haven't had any down time at all, really. The only problem is that our room was really cold and there were not any extra blankets! Brrrr....

Later that evening we ventured into Cork for dinner. Neither of us felt like a big sit down meal, so we wandered the streets for a while looking for something good. We ended up going to a place called Istanbul, a doner kebab and Turkish food place. We both had a chicken doner and they were delish!!! Incredibly messy but so good. A few thoughts on Cork - we think that Cork is a great place to stay to see things around it, but we didn't find the city all the compelling. Sadly, it looks like it is suffering from some serious economic depression, and really didn't have much going on. As a base to see things surrounding it, it was perfect. However, for evening entertainment there wasn't much - there weren't even many restaurants.

Tomorrow we are heading off to the Mizen Head peninsula, which is the most south western point in Ireland. We've been debating going to the Blarney Castle. On one hand, we feel that we should go as its an important thing to put on our "been there done that" list, but we really can't stomach the thought of competing with loads of tourists, and all the locals that we've met here tell us that you usually have to wait in a huge line. We'll see what we decide!

Until tomorrow, my friends.

xoxo,
Linds