Tag: Boats

Post author By barry
Post date October 5, 2022
1 Comment on Wexford

Some 6 or 7 years ago, Claire and I decided to get out of Durham for 4th of July and go somewhere different to watch fireworks. After a quick run through the local papers and websites, we decided on Butner, about 20 miles or so north. A town more famous for its variety of prison facilities, including the federally run minimum security establishment that housed Bernie Madoff, among others.

We quickly found the lake where the fireworks were supposed to be held, but we were practically the only people there. We got directions to a different lake. Same story. After a couple of hours and a glorious sunset, we went home, eventually to learn that Butner’s fireworks display had been held the weekend before. That’s forgivable on those occasions when July 4th falls on a Tuesday or a Wednesday, but not when it’s already on the weekend. Butner quickly became a running joke in our household, and then a simple punchline that needed to introduction. We’d just look at one another and say, “Butner!” without any obvious prompt. Always funny.

Wexford kinda filled that niche for us in Ireland, for a different reason. We’ve planned numerous trips to Wexford on our various visits, but somehow none of them ever came off. For our anniversary this past weekend we talked about trying again, but had to hold off till the last minute because we’re still waiting on the arrival of our main shipment of goods from the states. I expect every morning to receive a call from the shipping company to arrange a time for delivery that day, and every morning so far I’ve been disappointed. So Thursday night we cashed in a Hotels.com voucher and booked a room at the Crown Quarter on Wexford’s main quay for Friday night. A second night was unavailable, so we planned a busy day Saturday, and figured on catching the latest bus back to Youghal through Waterford.

When we checked in the woman at the desk warned us that there’s a disco on the ground floor on Friday nights, and we might get some of the bass coming through the floor, but that it would end by 12:30.

Pro tip: The disco at the Crown Quarter on the weekend runs right up to the legal 1 am limit, and is outside in the courtyard, where the sound carries extremely well into the rooms. Possibly even the best seat in the house. On the plus side, we heard both Come On Eileen and the Weezer cover of Toto’s Africa. So, a successful mini-vacation on that front.

Waterford itself is a quite lively place, lots of pedestrian activity along the narrow Viking era streets that make up the commercial district. Outdoor dining options everywhere, from cafes to white linen restaurants. We had dinner at the Thomas Moore Tavern where I ate some of the best mussels I’ve ever had, and Claire enjoyed the daily special of a local cod and spinach fritter with a beetroot carpaccio, which even I was able to take a bite of, and I despise beets. Even with appetisers, drinks, and dessert, the bill was only €80. We also had coffee and scones at Franks Place, and a quick lunch while waiting for the bus at Mi Asian street food.

Our big excursion for the day was the Irish National Heritage Park, a 100 acre site about 10 minutes out of town by bus. The walking tour of the park takes you through the various stages of Irish habitation, from the Neo-lithic era through the Norman settlements of about 900 years ago. Relatively educational, and not very strenuous. I confess I wasn’t paying attention to wheelchair accessibility. The park’s website states “The woods, paths and trails that lead through The Irish National Heritage Park are maintained as close to their natural state as possible, in keeping with the landscape as it would have been historically. Surfaces are therefore uneven and unpaved in parts. The installations and reconstructions themselves, are designed to reflect the actual experience of ancient and historical buildings. Care should be taken when accessing some of the low dwellings, the Ringfort stairways and all steps.”

The funniest part of our trip happened on the bus back, between Waterford and Dungarvan. A group of four teenage boys boarded, possibly at the Waterford Tech stop, possibly the one after. They sat in the back and were fairly loud. But shortly before disembarking at Crotty’s Pub stop outside Dungarvan to meet their girlfriends, they decided that a contest over who could say the word “penis” the loudest was going to be the most important thing ever. An utterly hilarious 5 minutes that I may never forget.

Claire and I agreed that we were glad not to have visited Wexford prior to our choice of settling in Youghal, because it would have been a tempting alternative. But living so far away from the bigger city of Cork, not to mention the likelihood of not having an ocean view, would have been second best. But we’ll definitely be back. But not to the Crown Quarter.

Tags Boats, castles, food, Harbor, Irish Heritage, Vikings

Buses Covid-19 Ireland Youghal

Youghal, and an update

The Covid-19 situation remains fluid. As of last night, there are 34 confirmed cases in Ireland (population just under 5 million), and an additional 16 in Northern Ireland (population 1.8 million). Nearly 1800 people have been tested in the Republic. Authorities are still urging calm, and saying that closing schools and public transport remains unnecessary at this time. France, our next potential destination, has around 1800 confirmed cases (population 65 million), or roughly 5 times the infection rate of Ireland. They are expected to escalate their response to Level 3, which will involve closing most public transport. At that point, we expect our trip to be canceled for us by the airline.

Portugal remains relatively unaffected, with 41 total infections recorded out of a population of roughly 10 million. Travel to and from Italy has been suspended pretty much everywhere, as well as travel within the country. Spain is canceling most public events and large gatherings. Our itinerary puts us in Portugal and Spain between 5 April and 22 April, so we are keeping close tabs on both of those. We have confirmed that we can pick up our rental car from Cork to Dublin at an hour’s notice (currently we’re planning on making that drive between 1 April and 4 April), and that we can change our flight back to the US at no cost. So, if we decide in the next few weeks that it’s time to get out of Dodge, and ride this out in the comfort of our own home, we can do that in basically 24 hours.

Once again, our thanks to all of you who have expressed concern over our well-being. We are somewhat stressed, possibly inconvenienced and disappointed, and likely out some money. But we think our risk of catching this virus remains relatively low (my personal assessment is that it is no greater here than in the States), and there are far many people in much worse shape than we are.

Back to our travels!

Today is the midpoint of our planned trip. Yesterday we took the bus to the coastal community of Youghal. On our 2017 trip to Ireland, we passed through this town on our way between Waterford and Cork, and spent a couple of hours walking around. It was high on our list of places to return to.

We misread the bus schedule, and thought there was only one stop in the town, so we inadvertently got off 2 km from the town center. That turned out to be fortuitous, as we found ourselves at probably the nicest beach in the Republic. It was cold and windy, but gorgeous. And at low tide, flat and sandy.

I didn’t take my shoes off, but i did dip my hands into the Atlantic Ocean for the first time this year.

While some of the beach features are clearly man-made erosion control, there are some fascinating rock formations as well.

This little memorial would be called “Brandy” if it were in the States.

The story of the Youghal lighthouse is pretty cool. There’s been a light on this site for pretty near a millenium. A couple of hundred years ago, some town leaders thought it would make sense to move the light to an island a mile or so offshore. Construction got about halfway through, when the faction arguing that the light should remain in its traditional location returned to power, and the island project was abandoned. You can see the island in the second picture above, although at blog resolution i don’t think you can make out the light. It’s now a bird sanctuary. A new lighthouse was completed on the original site in 1852.

The village green reminded of nothing so much as the Willoughby epsiode of the Twilight Zone.

At the entrance to the green is a statue memorializing 4 men killed by British troops in the town in 1798. As i’ve mentioned previously, i’ve had a couple of conversations with people here about Confederate statues back home. (All initiated by locals. I’m doing my best to avoid politics on this trip). They have all made the “history” argument that removing memorials to the Confederacy violates “history.” The responding argument, of course is simple: where are the memorials to the British governors of Ireland who ordered these executions? They don’t exist, nor should they, because although they are clearly a part of history, their actions are not those we want to commemorate. The Confederacy is the same.

We walked about the town for a while, ate a fantastic lunch at McCarthy’s, in the Old Imperial Hotel, and otherwise enjoyed the relatively benign weather. Definitely high up on the list of places we’d consider living in.

Tags Beach, Boats, Lighthouses, Statues

Buses Ireland Kinsale Traveling

Kinsale

Post author By barry
Post date March 7, 2020
1 Comment on Kinsale

We took the bus down to Kinsale the other day. It’s a picturesque port town near the mouth of the River Bandon, accessible via a 45 minute bus ride from downtown Cork. It probably caters a little more to the tourist trade than either Cobh or Midleton, despite not having a major specific draw like the distillery or the Heritage Center. Even so, enough of the restaurants and coffee shops were open, to make a full day of it. And it turned out to be a pretty nice day for taking pictures, so I did a lot of that.

We started with coffee and pastries at The Poet’s Corner bookshop and cafe. And, seriously, their scones were the best I’ve had on this visit. And I’ve had more than my share the past 5 weeks.

I’m going to divide the pictures up into waterfront, and town, and mostly post them without comment.

We had fantastic skies most of the day.

Like most Irish towns, Kinsale has old churches and castles, not to mention some old pubs. Not all of them were opened on our visit, though.

*Some people think that’s the best kind*

*Your basic 330 year old pub, sadly, not open for business this early in the day*

Houses and house names in Kinsale seemed to me to exhibit more of a sense of humor than some of the others I’ve seen.

*I understand you need a special invitation to spend the night here*

*Nobody knows what goes on behind this one*

And just an amazing little street that we happened to turn up on our walk.

I’m hoping we’ll get another opportunity to go back and spend some more time in Kinsale before the month is out.

Tags Boats, castles, Clouds, Doors, Harbor, Lobster

Buses Crosshaven Ireland

Crosshaven

Post author By barry
Post date March 4, 2020
2 Comments on Crosshaven

Days slip past easily in Cork. We’re exploring something new almost daily, and, when we’re not, we’re recovering from our explorations. Sunday, mostly on the recommendation of some folks we’ve met here, we took the bus down to Crosshaven. Tuesday we put on our tourist hats and took a bus around the ring of Kerry. Today’s been a successful day of errands, including repairing a camera lens, printing out some travel documents, tracking down hard to find vitamins, and topping up our mobile plan.

Here’s a little bit from our Sunday trip. Crosshaven was our longest ride on Bus Eirann so far, about 45 minutes from town. We passed the first 1960s syle car based suburb of the trip, outside of Carrigaline. As a friend back home pointed out, it’s still got narrow lanes, bike lanes, and sidewalks, but it’s also not a convenient bus ride or walk to shopping. As a result, the roads get pretty congested, especially during rush hours. Old town Carrigaline, on the other hand, was charming, but congested. Of course, i made the expected joke about catching the 220 bus on our next trip. Whatever it takes.

But, you go to Crosshaven for the harbor views, and they are worth the trip.

I assume the outdoor section of the arcade/amusement park is operational in season, but there’s something about on in the off-season that fascinates me. Occasionally, we visit the Jefferson Pools, in Bath County, Virginia. Across the road, is the Warm Springs Inn. The Inn was run, and may still be, it’s been a few years since we’ve been there as the Pools have been closed for renovations for a while, by a couple who have traveled with various carnivals. They kept some rides and stuff behind the inn, and I loved walking around back there.

We climbed to the top of the hill behind the town, where Camden Fort Meagher sits adjacent to the GAA fields. It was closed for the season as well. We’d been told that the far side of the peninsula, Church Bay, was the really pretty part. Sadly, we weren’t up to the extra mile or so of trekking, as it would have meant a long hike back up the hill. Maybe next time.