It was a fairly laid-back start this morning…
Heading for the 10 a.m. train into Cork.
The Cobh campervan aire is next to Cobh railway station. So it’s perfect for rolling out of the van and onto the train.
The train drops you into the east of Cork, and it’s a ten-minute walk into the city centre.
Our plan for the day is to use the GPSmyCity app and its walking route of Cork. We were torn between a paid-for guided tour and the online GPSmyCity tour. Guided tours are great but can be variable, and they’re usually only an hour or two. We had a few hours in Cork, so decided to do the tour ourselves. You see more but probably don’t learn as much.
The GPSmyCity Cork tour has ten stops.
Stop one is the statue of Father Theobald Mathew — the Apostle of Temperance. He convinced millions in Ireland to give up the booze. Etc., etc.
As we wandered through the city to the next stop, we paused at a bookshop and bought another map and guidebook: a ring-bound road atlas that might be easier to read than the A1-ish road map we brought with us. We also bought the Lonely Planet Ireland Road Trip book. We have the Lonely Planet Ireland book, but the road trip book is much better suited to our plans—hopefully a good purchase.
Next was Saints Peter and Paul’s Church. Not much to say; we see a lot of churches on these tours. Though this church stood out as what you might call refined. We’ve seen simple, run-down and blingy. This was ornate but not over the top.
Then a wander through the main shopping area of Cork to probably our favourite stop of the tour — the English Market. It’s probably a bit krass to say this was our favourite bit of Cork. The history is always fascinating in these cities, but it’s sometimes the quirky or exceptional that stand out. This bustling market stood out.
According to Cork City Council, it was created in 1788 by the Protestant, or “English”, corporation. When a Catholic-majority corporation later opened St Peter’s Market — the “Irish Market” — the older market became known as the English Market. Originally a meat market, it now covers all sorts… though meat, fish and poultry are definitely a big part of it. We bought burgers and fish for tea.
Massive locally caught bluefin tuna steaks, anyone? The fish must have been four or five feet long.
Next was the incredibly long Oliver Plunkett Street, with its independent merchants. This Frisky Whiskey place caught my eye for a picture. The street was much more interesting than the main ones with the big department stores.
Next, we headed to the three-spired St Fin Barre’s Cathedral (you can only see two spires in the picture below). We were flagging a bit at this point, so didn’t go in.
Spotted this mural on the way.
We then went around Elizabeth Fort (free to get in). A plaque there tells the old story behind the phrase “freezing the balls of a brass monkey” (though the story isn’t specific to Elizabeth Fort). The fort was built in 1601 by Sir George Carew during the reign of Elizabeth I.
Next was University College Cork. Fantastic wooded grounds and this centrepiece building. We were getting a bit parched for a coffee stop at this point, but everything was closed on campus on Saturday.
The tour then took us through Fitzgerald Park, where we finally had a not-stand-up, coffee and cake — a super-dense (and very yummy) GF chocolate and almond fudge slice. We were initially a bit disappointed with the size of the fudge, but in the end it was more than enough!
The rooks (there aren’t apparently many crows in Ireland) were eyeing every dropped morsel. And a plastic tub of what looked like Thousand Island dressing was keeping many of them busy and frustrated. A shame to see wild birds pecking away at our plastic waste.
After Fitzgerald Park, we were heading up to the old gaol and crossed a footbridge over the Lee, where some boys were trying their luck with their fishing gear. Just as we stepped onto the bridge, one of them got a catch… and it was way bigger than they were banking on.
By the time we got to them on the bridge, their flimsy gear had managed to get the fish onto the bank about 15 feet below where they stood. None of them seemed to know what to do next until Sue said they should probably try to get it into the keepnet. So one of the boys clambered down the 15-foot drop and netted the fish. No idea what they were going to do with it next, but it would have fed three families. Their mothers were going to be a bit shocked when they got it home!
We don’t know anything about fishing, so no idea what sort of fish it was, other than a whopper — about 50 cm, I’d have thought.
Cork City Gaol.
We’d been on our feet for about five hours by this point and were definitely flagging. So we didn’t go into the gaol either.
So after stopping just long enough to read the info boards outside the goal, it was time to do the 45-minute schlep back to the station, via Dunnes, to pick up some stuff to have with our English Market purchases.
Then the train ride home.
All in all, a great taster day in Cork. It had a bit of that big-city tourist vibe going on — Edinburgh, Bath, York — but stamped its own identity on the genre too. It felt more lived-in than somewhere like Edinburgh or York… they just feel like the whole place is one big tourist attraction. At least Cork felt like real people were living (and shopping) there.
It was really interesting to take the GPSmyCity tour that wasn’t just the main city centre tour. We wandered some posh bits and some less posh bits. There was that contrast of poor and rich you get in a lot of cities, but evident in Cork as well. We marvelled at the size and scale of some of the houses we passed coming back from the goal. And there were a number of houses on large 0.5 acre plots that were for sale. Those would have been snapped up in many major cities, including Bristol. So you have to wonder how well a city is doing when those sorts of properties don’t sell. Hmmm.
Tomorrow, we head out of the Cobh/Cork area and for a campsite with toilets and showers—yay! We’ll also get our first taste (visually) of the Wild Atlantic Way.
Finally, at the risk of getting into too much detail — we’re sticking to our “number 1’s only” policy in the van. This means we have to brave public loos for number 2’s when we’re in an aire, like the stop in Cobh, or when we’re pitched on the side of the road. The toilets at the Cobh campervan stop are fine-ish… but by the end of both the days we were there, they were getting a bit grim. So having somewhere we can do a number 2 without grimacing at the thought will be nice again!
J
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