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Cork and the Blarney Castle

We took the short train ride to Cork from Killarney late morning on Monday. Packed bus, but short ride. We stayed at the Bru Hostel.

Tuesday we took the Cork tour bus. We had a woman driver and thought we were going to loose our lives a few times. Cork is a beautiful city with about 30 bridges that connects the city between north and south. The hills are enormous and filled with homes and businesses. There are many churches with beautiful architecture and a shopping square much like Dublin. We ended up eating dinner at Hillbilly's Chicken. Classy, I know.

Wednesday we went to the Blarney Castle! I am so glad I finally made it there. The castle itself was amazing, the first castle we have been in, and kissing that stone was an accomplishment! The castle was decent size with steep, short, winding stairs. The rooms were so tiny compared to rooms today. The Blarney Stone is in the wall at the very top of the castle. There is an older Irish gentleman that helps you lay on your back and slide down the wall for a kiss of the stone. It is to bring you the gift of eloquence. I'm not sure when you are supposed to get it, but I don't think I've received it yet! :0)

We decided to leave Cork a little sooner than expected and head to London on the ferry. We took the bus from Cork to Dublin and stayed another night in Dublin. The next morning we took the ferry across the Irish Sea into Liverpool, England. Then the nightmare began. The ferry ride took 7 hours to cross. Neither of us know why it took so long! Then we waited at the bus stop for the next 6 hours for the ride to London which was at midnight. We then took the 7 hour bus ride (overnight) to London. We had to share seats the first four hours because the bus was so full. The three kids and dad behind were all sick and coughing at the back of our heads, and we had to sit back by the toilet where people kept coming back by us! MISERABLE! We finally make it to London and had to wait an hour there for the information booth to open so we knew where to go. We finally had a cab take us to the hostel and we couldn't check in until 2pm!!!!! Needless to say, we both passed out in the waiting room for a few hours and then were finally able to get in our room.

Posted by laurnb3 on 2009-11-06 15:48:40 | Rating: