Day 9: After I got home from the Black Cab tour yesterday afternoon, my body crashed. Between having that cough and the emotional wear of the tour, my body said, “Ok, lady, welcome to bedridden…population you.” My eyes were sizzling in their sockets, I was coughing like crazy, and I felt like crap until I went to sleep. I couldn’t even wrap my brain around work, so I gave up and just watched mindless youtube videos. I woke up the next morning and felt a little better, but still coughing. Got my stuff packed and ready to catch the bus to Cork. I highly recommend the AirBNB I stayed at! Since I’m on the mend, I didn’t want to backslide by over doing it, so instead of walking 1.5 miles with the pack, I opted for uber. $5 for a ride in a super nice Mercedes? Done. Guy was really nice. There are two things people talk about here… Politics and alcohol! He asked if I’d had a Guinness or Bushmill whiskey. I said no, I don’t drink. He said in a low voice, “get out”. We laughed and he said I should tell my friends that my driver tried to kick me out for not drinking Guinness…. Oh, little does he know! 😜

And this paragraph begins what shall be forevermore known as, “The Bus Ride From Hell”. Dublin Coach was AWESOME on the Dublin to Belfast trip a few days ago. Right on schedule, super comfortable bus, wifi, usb port- seriously everything you could want in a 2 hour bus ride. The trip from Belfast to Cork- yeah, not so much. So the bus arrives on time, and there was a HUGE line of people. The driver had to make change for pretty much every person who didn’t have a booking (the majority). It took so much time that we left 12 minutes late. They really should have an exact change only policy. Not only that, but two girls at the back of the line who had bookings in hand were turned away because the bus was full!! WHAT?! Shouldn’t the driver ask first for people with bookings and THEN start boarding people without? That made me really nervous for my return trip… This bus wasn’t as nice as the other one. No usb port, so I had to be really careful with my power on my phone- I was going to be on the bus for 5 hours. We pull into Dublin 10 minutes late. My connecting bus was leaving in 5 minutes! I didn’t see another bus parked where we were dropped off. Driver informs me and 2 other ladies who are going to Cork that we have to cross the bridge and turn right. They said, “Will the bus wait for us?!” The driver just shrugged. FUCK! Here I am, with this heavy ass pack, feeling like crap, and now having to full on RUN for a block in the heat. Get to the bus stop, and….no bus!! Did we miss it?! There was a huge line of people. Apparently the 10am bus to Cork didn’t even show up!! So I’m talking to the other 2 ladies that got off the Belfast bus with me, and their ticket says the bus leaves at 11:40. Mine says 11:45. Some other people’s say 12. WTF? At this point, I’m not having a lot of faith in Dublin Coach…. A Dublin Coach shows up- it’s not the Cork bus. I asked the driver when the Cork bus was coming. He said noon. Great. Noon comes and goes. No Dublin Coach. Another bus comes. I ask this driver where’s the Cork bus. He calls someone and says it will be there at 12:20. And it did show up about that time. Again, no usb, but I only had to make it through 3 hours and all would be good. Emailed my AirBNB host to tell him I’d be an hour late.

Now it’s after 3pm, and have made a couple of stops. I ask the girl next to me if she knows how much longer to Cork. She said she’s getting off in Waterford, and doesn’t know, but maybe another 2 hours. WHAT?!! We stop in Waterford, it’s almost 3:30, and one of the ladies from the Belfast bus comes up and asks the driver when we’re getting to Cork. He said a couple more hours. They’re panicking, because they had timed things to attend to in Cork. Their ticket, like my ticket, said we would be arriving about 2:45!! Well, Dublin Coach put the arrival time to Waterford on our tickets- NOT to Cork, even though we bought a ticket to Cork. We’re all completely over this bus at this point. Long story short, 8 hours after we left Belfast, we arrived in Cork. I will never again take Dublin Coach- and I had already paid for my return ticket. I told a few people about this, and they all suggested GoBe, so I booked a new return ticket with them.

8 hours on a bus, not having planned for food, and no stops for any, I was starving and tired and feeling like crap with my cold by the time I got to the AirBNB. I dropped my bags, went and bought some groceries, and crashed. The coughing was getting worse…

Day 10: I woke up feeling awful. Serious cough, exhausted. But I was not going to just lay in bed! I had 2 things planned for today, and I was just going to do them and get back to the bnb to rest. First stop, Blarney Castle! Now, I had heard that the lines can be over an hour to kiss the damn stone. I wanted to do it, but not if I had to stand in line for an hour. So I intended to be there right when it opened, and basically do what I did at Edinburgh Castle- beat the crowds! I was feeling so poorly, and really didn’t have the will or energy to deal with figuring out the bus, so I used the MyTaxi app (no Uber in Cork). I really hate when you don’t know the fare in advance…it ended up being 20 euros!!!!! I almost died right there. Arrived at 8:30 and was 2nd in line behind a girl from Orlando, Florida. We both had the same plan- run to the rock! While we were in line, the buses started coming and dropping off hordes of tourists. Doors opened, paid my money, and with what little energy I had, I did a super fast walk up the hill to the castle. I took time to snap a couple of pics with no tourists in them, but my main focus was getting to that stone! Got to the castle and realized now I had to climb 4 stories of narrow, spiral, uneven rock stairs. My least favorite type of stairs. As I kept going up and up and the stairs were narrower and narrower, I was seriously afraid that my fear of heights was going to be an issue getting back down. Between that, and my coughing fits, I was not enjoying myself.

Reached the top. The girl from Orlando was ahead of me- first to the stone. I was second. And then I saw what you had to do!! You had to lay down, hold on to some rails, and lean backwards into a hole 4 stories above the ground to kiss the stone. Seriously? Can’t they just put in it a nice room somewhere?? Ground level?? My fear of heights was in high gear right now, between being at the top of this castle, worrying about the stairs, and now this. I hesitated and wasn’t sure I could do this. I let the guy who was after me go. He asked if I’d take his picture. Sure. The the staff at the top in charge of helping us maneuver into position to kiss some damn stone were 2 for 2 in not dropping a tourist into the abyss this morning. I decided to take my chances. Asked the guy who went before me to take my picture, kissed the stone, and apparently now I will have the “gift of gab”. Considering how verbose I already am…watch out world! When I finished, I asked the guy where’s the elevator down. 😉 He said the stairs weren’t as steep and narrow going down, and he was right. Whew!

Inside the castle, there really isn’t much to see. It’s just a shell of a castle, really. It’s outside where the action is!! The grounds and gardens of the castle are…hmm…what adjective??? OUTSTANDING. AMAZING. GORGEOUS. PEACEFUL. PERFECT!! There are all of these trails through the woods, along rivers, into secret gardens. I was in heaven! Especially because for the most part, I had the river walk area all to myself because everyone else was in line for the stone! It was so relaxing, and much needed after so much go, go, go over the past few weeks. I took about a zillion pictures, but here are a few of my favorites. Even if you don’t care about the stone, if you love plants and nature, go here!!

These are from the poison garden.

These are from the river walk.

These are from the woodland walk and secret fern garden.

Soon I came into an area where the grounds opened up. There was a pasture with some cows, and then I saw lovely Blarney House!! It’s only open Monday-Saturday though, and I was there on Sunday. So disappointed! 🙁

I made my way back around to the front through some (more!) lovely gardens!

And then into the area called the Rock Close, where there were even MORE lovely gardens, and ancient and odd things to look at as well…

If I had felt better, I literally could have spent 4-5 hours here easily. But after 2.5, it was time to head out to my next destination. As I made my way back to the castle, I was soooooooo happy I got here early when I saw the line at 11:30!! Honestly, I was a little concerned about Blarney Castle when I was doing my planning, and almost took it off my list. A lot of people said it wasn’t that great. I’m SO GLAD I went with my gut and did it anyway!! It’s one of my most favorite things I’ve done in Ireland so far! Of course, I love plants, so this was like a slice of paradise for me. 🙂  If there was just the stone, eh. I mean, you can say you kissed the Blarney Stone, but I wouldn’t pay just to do that. Especially if I had to stand in line! It definitely wasn’t the highlight- the gardens were!!

Now I had to get to Cobh (pronounced Cove). I wasn’t going to spend money on a taxi again, so it was bus time! Caught the bus to Cork, then had to walk (which really sucked because my cough was getting worse) to the train station. On the way, I saw a pharmacy. Usually I try to keep those OFF my “to do” list, but I was needing some assistance. The pharmacist recommended what would be best for my cough, and sent me on my way. I caught the train to Cobh. Roundtrip 10 euros, and 24 minutes one way. Not bad! The reason Cobh was on my list is because it was the last port of call for the Titanic before she sailed off to her fate. Back then, Cobh was called Queenstown.

I had booked a 2:30 tour of the Titanic Experience, and was about an hour early. I walked around town a little, but I didn’t have much energy. 🙁 I really wanted to go into the cathedral, but it was up a really steep hill and I knew I’d never make it. At 2:30, went in for my tour. The building is the actual White Star Line office where everyone boarding Titanic from Queenstown had to go through! Ah, history…. They gave everyone a little boarding card with the name of a real Titanic passenger on it. At the end, you’d get to see if you lived or died. A bit morbidish, but kinda fun, too! I was Hannah Riordan, age 18, sailing 3rd class (yep, sounds like me! Too cheap for anything else! 🙂 )

Inside we had a guide and she would explain things, plus there were videos as well. It kind of took you through the whole experience (which is probably why it’s named Titanic Experience! 😉 ). After you got your boarding pass, you boarded a tender ship. Cobh actually had a deep enough port for Titanic to dock at, but it would have taken about 8 hours to turn her around in the harbor, so the captain decided to anchor off shore. Just like I learned about the Nomadic and the Traffic, there was one tender boat for 1st and 2nd class, and 1 for 3rd class. Titanic couldn’t be seen from the shore, as she was anchored on the other side of these islands. The tender boats would go between these islands, and that’s when passengers would get their first view of the ship. The original dock that the passengers used to board their tender ships is still standing!! Amazing!! A lot of history there…This picture is of Titanic’s captain, Captain Smith (with the beard) taken on the docks here in Cobh. The last picture of him…

After we learned about the tender boats, we “boarded” the Titanic. We got a little tour of the different cabins on board the ship, then we went into another area that played a film about the iceberg, sinking of the ship, and the rescues that followed. All in all, it was a pretty cool little tour that lasted about 30 minutes. After that, you went into the exhibit room where there were different things about Titanic. I was feeling crappy and had seen most of that in Belfast, so I did a really quick walk through. Oh! And Hannah Riordian, who I was for the trip….well, she survived and lived in New York until her death in 1982. 🙂 Me and Hannah- traveling cheap and surviving to tell the tale. 😉

I had another hour until the train back to Cork, so I decided to <insert dramatic music> eat lunch at a restaurant. I thought that maybe it would make me feel better. I had my heart set on the Titanic Bar underneath the White Star office (the one with the tables by the pier in the above picture), but it was full. 🙁  So I walked along and found the Commodore Hotel. Ordered a bacon cheeseburger with chips and it was goooooood…

I walked back toward the train, but had one last stop planned. A visit to a statue of Annie Moore and her two brothers. See, Cobh isn’t just about Titanic. It was where about 3 MILLION Irish immigrants left their homeland in search of a better life- many of them never to see their island home again. On January 1, 1892, 15 year old Annie accompanied her two younger brothers and sailed to the United States to meet their parents. She was the very first person processed through the newly opened Ellis Island in New York, and there is a statue there to commemorate her as well!

I wish I would have had more time to explore Cobh, and had been feeling better. It really is an interesting little town! Maybe another day… I took the train back to Cork and walked back to the bnb. Took another dose of medicine and fell into bed completely exhausted. I had to feel better!! Because tomorrow I had a 12 hour bus tour scheduled!!

CONTINUE TO DAY 11

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