Trip to Co. Cork, Ireland (Finally!)

I was off to West Cork with a friend over the long bank holiday weekend (31 May – 02 June). I should have shared this experience much earlier, but due to quite a few circumstances, the entry has been stored away for a bit.

Here is the original entry that I wrote earlier:

There has not been any updates on my blog as of late – so the decision to go to West Cork and Cork city can never be more apt than what it is intended it to be.

Yes, people say that Ireland is beautiful. I have no doubt about that at all, after all there are tonnes of beautiful places in Europe anyway. As for Eire, look at the place I live now, I mean the area of Dun Laoghaire is itself, gorgeous. I said to a friend in London one day, "Stephen, I am going for a walk by the sea!". How many people can really say that? It is so much of saying something of equivalent weight when you have your office close to the Andaman Beach or something – well I get carried away, Andaman is in another league.

We decided to rent a car. I went with a friend from office really – Lock See. Well, we took off early. It was fun drive. Nothing really major and the scenic views along the road slowed things down when were just gawking in awe when were surrounded with all these nice sceneries.

We stopped at Urlingford Town (it is a small town, then again all the towns are really small). That is the beauty of the trip – we stopped when we felt like it, chances are we were in some nice village or small towns with people downing their Guinness at midday. BTW, we were even 'crashing' a function at a pub celebrating newlywed couple - that reminded me so much of Oprah & Gayle's adventure across America. We drove on to go to Kinsale, a small town in south westerly Cork. Kinsale is bustling with things – in miniature way! All shops are small. All restaurants are indeed enough to welcome 15 guests at a time. What’s so apparent about this is the landscape of the harbour itself and the surroundings.

+ On the way to Charles Fort (by foot), in Kinsale

+ The harbour - really nice scenic view, I must say

We were in Kinsale for the whole day, and we were a bit frustrated of not being able to take the boat ride to see the whales and dolphins, whatever other sea-creatures that we could bundle in the 50-Euro charge! Anyway, that was just the thought we had. The boat didn’t turn up at 6:00pm, and we were headed to our Hotel in City of Cork itself. The night was spent with John Paul (JP) and Dave. JP is our friend from office and he’s from Cork. So, what could be more appropriate right? A Cork man, for a Cork experience. Dave was so chatty - he convinced me that Guinness is not available in Cork, and Corkmen drink Murphy's instead. Don't ask me, but hey, knowledge is useful!

+ Beautiful Mizen Head (1)

The next day, we continued our exploration – heading towards Mizen Head. Apparently, it is the most south-westerly point of Ireland. But generally, this part of Ireland is really breathtakingly beautiful. We spent time there, and went to the old light house. I was afraid of height, but I managed to brace myself up to get to the end. It was well worth it – it is really nice.

+ Beautiful Mizen Head (2)

We left Mizen Head to head to Bantry. We read that Bantry is another nice place. We planned to over-night there. It is really a small town. It reminded me of a Universal Studio facade really. It looked like a man-made town, with not-so-real people. They talk so softly and when we went to the restaurant - the people talked too softly. Seriously! Again, we met JP. We had a good chat. And the next morning, we left the hotel and headed to Bantry House – a huge mansion, overlooking the nice seafront and used to belong to an Earl. We bumped into JP with his mom for a morning walk. That was a really nice mansion with acres of beautiful garden. The view, let’s not get started on that. It is indeed beautiful.

+ Bantry House in Bantry, Co. Cork - superhuge mansion with superhumongous acres of gardens, which used to belong to an Earl

Then we cut the trip and decided to go back to Dun Laoghaire. That was a total 3 days of good trip to West Cork, or west of Ireland. It was nice indeed. What about the next trip? Well, perhaps to Kerry – another beautiful place. Let’s see, when do I get the time to do that?