Cork—Monday

 April 15th

Today has been blustery with rain followed by sun by more wind and then sheets of soft rain and then sunshine followed by... you get the idea. We have our rain jackets and can stop inside a store front when the rain begins. It only lasts a few minutes and then it's sunny again. The breeze is pretty constant going from breezy to Force 3. I asked a shop keeper if this is typical and she said, "Pretty much."

Our task today was figuring out how to get train seat reservations and the best train to catch for Killarney, walk around The English Market, and check out the Butter Museum. We were disappointed to find the Butter Museum is closed Monday and Tuesday and we leave Wednesday morning. Doglips! The English Market, however, was busy, and as you'll see, we loved it.

This is the small breakfast at Gabriel House.

Two dogs on the property eager for attention. 

Lounge area at the Rail Travel Centre.

This attendant gave us a code to get a ticket for a
a seat reservation.

Cork station before the next train.

The "Travel Centre" is where we
made our seat rez.

Note the rain sweeping across the camera lens.
One sec we're in the sunshine and the next
we're not.

St. Anne's 1722-1726 overlooking
the River Lee is known for its 8 bells.
Its four clock faces were the largest
until Big Ben.

A few steps from St. Anne's is this
informational plague, making our
self-guided walking tour of the
Shandon area of Cork sound dramatic.

Enlarge this and read about the bells.

Every town has a memorial to those
who fought and died in WWI.

Murals decorate Cork even on pedestrian lanes
winding through neighborhoods.

This is a close up of the "We Owl the Night" mural.

In the above picture you can see the owl on the right.

In our wanderings we appropriately discovered
this organization. It supports those most of us
call gypsies.  They have a long history in Ireland.

Every city we visit seems to have an
open air market, much like Seattle's Pike
Place Market. We love visiting them.
 

And the tour of The English
Market begins.

This sausage sandwich cures all hangovers. At least
that's what the guy who purchased it told us.

Who says fish can't be fresh on Monday?

These sandwiches were made fresh this morning.

Back on the streets of Cork.

A banner at Cork City Library.

This message is next door to the library.

And this message just left of the above message.

We dropped into Dunnes to
have a coffee before heading
back to our hotel. This shopper
was examining some bread.

These steps opposite the train station
are a short cut to Summer Hill Road
where our hotel is situated.

There are 58 steps; Marie counted them.

This shows how steep the steps are.
Don't be fooled by the sunshine. A
few minutes before, we were huddled
in a doorway, sheltering from the rain.

Today was a relaxed, easy day where we just walked 6.7 miles.