Ireland Day 2 - Cork & Baltimore

We slept in (or at least didn’t get out of bed) until around 11:00 on Wednesday so we actually missed the B&B’s breakfast. We were in need of some caffeine (and food) so we packed up our stuff and stopped in at Starbucks on our way out of Dublin.

We decided to head for Blarney Castle first which is just outside of Cork. As we left Dublin we started to see where Ireland gets the reputation for being so beautiful. The countryside is fantastically green with fields of sheep and cattle in all directions. It was an amazing drive. After a couple hours of driving, we pulled into the town of Cork. As we wound our way through the town, we found street after street of colorful stores and pubs. It was a feast for the eyes! I think we could have happily driven those streets all day but we eventually made our way out and arrived at Blarney Castle.

Blarney is famous for the Blarney Stone which hangs from the top of the castle. Kissing the stone bestows the kisser with the gift of eloquence. People have travelled from far and wide to kiss this stone, especially actors and actresses, tv reporters, etc. The castle was actually offered $1 million to tour the stone through the U.S., an offer they refused. Here are pictures of Am and I at the castle:

After Blarney, we headed for the town of Baltimore on the southern coast of Ireland , about as far south as you can go in the country. We tried to call a B&B from our guidebook but we received no answer so we decided to wing it. We pulled into Baltimore right at sunset and drove through the town in search of the B&B. The town was fairly small and we quickly wove our way out the other side without finding it. The road we were on was very narrow and didn’t give us any opportunity to turn around so we kept going straight out of town until the road dead ended...at the very edge of the coast. We got out to take some pictures and Am suggested we walk up a hill to discover what we could see from the top. Excellent call, Am! We got to the top and found incredible views of the Atlantic Ocean…at sunset. Wow! The views were phenomenal and the sky magnificent. We may have been a touch lost but God knew exactly where we were going!  Here is Am enjoying the view:

From there we went off in search of a place to lay our heads for the night. The B&B that was our Plan B (pricier than we wanted) was on a section of road that was blocked off for maintenance so we were on to Plan C (no, we didn’t actually have a Plan C, we just kept driving).

Just outside of Baltimore we found a quaint little house that had a cheap room that we could rent. The experience at this tiny B&B had Am wanting one of her own! Here is a picture of our room and a shot from the next day in front of the B&B:

To finish off the night, we walked through the construction on the road to get to the B&B that was blocked off so we could eat some dinner there. It was a little dicey working our way through the construction equipment and ditches but we braved it (we were REALLY hungry). Here we are enjoying my birthday dinner at Casey’s of Baltimore (no, I wasn’t drunk, just couldn’t hold my mammoth camera quite still enough with one hand while also triggering the shutter at 1/13th second to get both of us crisply in the shot!).

Day 2 proved to be yet another great day!