Day Four - Lismore, Cobh, and Kinsale

After a discussion with our host, Phil we completely changed our plans for the day.  Originally we were going to drive to Hook Head and along the coast to Kinsale.  Phil suggested that we visit Lismore, a town he felt was quite lovely and overlooked and then hit the coast west of Hook Head.  He felt that we would still get the flavor of that section of the coast, see Lismore and take a nice drive over the mountains to get to Lismore.

I think he was right.  The road over Knockmealdown Mountain was breathtaking, narrow and twisting, but breathtaking. The views went on forever and we even had our first encounter with sharing the road with sheep!

Lismore Park

Lismore was indeed a lovely town.  As we were strolling around we came upon another one of those archways that I can't resist peaking through.  And what a wonderful surprise - an adorable small park that had everything: a couple pieces of sculpture, a wrought iron gazebo, an old stone beehive ice house, a tiny waterfall and stream, and some beautiful gardens.

After another pub lunch we drove to the south coast and the town of Dungarvan where we scored our cache of the day hidden at a roadside heritage monument: The Cathy Barry, according to local maritime experts was believed to have been built around 1943/1944 on contract by the Royal Navy, and was used in the D-Day landings, ferrying troops to the Normandy beaches.

Cobh

From there we passed through Youghal, Midleton, finally stopping at Cobh for a bit of a walk about.  (sounding a bit Irish, eh?)  Cobh, situated on a peninsula, is a workaday seaside town at the base of a hill. We parked the car and strolled around for about an hour.  Upon coming back to the car we realized that we had parked in a pay zone and not paid.  Fortunately we were neither ticketed or booted.  Which reminds me, sometime during our first day or two we lost a hubcap - I think that means that we are officially in Ireland.

We took a five minute ferry ride which saved us an hour of driving and arrived in Kinsale, our home for the next two days, by 5:30.  At The Woodlands House we were greeted by our hostess, Valerie.  After being shown to our room, we were offered a cup of tea and biscuits in the sitting room.

Valerie suggested several places for dinner.  Unfortunately without reservations and on a Friday night the ones we tried were full.  We wandered about for a bit and entered Crazypots (yes, that was the name).  It, too, was full but we could eat at the bar.  It worked out to be just the right thing.  The food was quite good and Neil was able to try his first Murphy's which he thoroughly enjoyed.  (In County Cork it is Murphy's not Guinness.)  But what made the evening extra nice was our conversation with the lovely woman behind the bar.

View from our B&B

The Woodlands House

We are now snugged up back in our room watching an Irish language tv station.  All the other stations are in English but we are sticking with this one.  Why, I do not know.