Diane finally gets in some shopping

Trip Start Apr 12, 2010

Trip End Apr 25, 2010

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Flag of Ireland Cobh, County Cork, Ireland
Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Today we had a more relaxing day with no tour booked. The weather was a little warmer with a high around 8 and partly sunny, so after a leisurely breakfast we headed down to the pier around 11 AM. One great thing about Cobh (pronounced Cove) is that the commuter train station is right beside the cruise ship terminal, so taking a train to Cork is easy. Cheap too, a return ticket was only 6.35 euros each.

On a side note, one of the ways that Ireland shows it's Independence from Britain is that they use the Euro instead of the Pound. We're juggling five different currencies depending on where we are. We have Bermuda dollars for the taxi home, US dollars for the ship's casino, Scottish Pounds for Glasgow, Euros for Ireland and France, and British Pounds for England. Good thing Ron works for a bank and gets a preferential exchange rate.

Cork

Anyway, the train took about 25 minutes to get to Cork, and it was a 15 minute walk into the city center. Cork is a charming clean city, and the second largest in Ireland. We toured the shopping district for a few hours. Diane was happy to get to do some shopping. The first place she hit was Marks and Spencer, and it certainly wasn't the last. We picked up a few things, and caught the 2 PM train back to Cobh. We then strolled around Cobh for a little while. Cobh was a major shipping center in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Many Irish emigrants heading for North America left from here. As well, it was the last port of call for Titanic before it met it's fate, and also in 1915 the Lusitania was sunk by a German U-boat in site of the harbour. Many residents paddled out in boats to rescue survivors.

Tonight is the last formal dining night so we're just going to chill until then. Beef Wellington and lobster are on the menu, so it sounds like dinner will be surf and turf. Don't worry about the waistline, we had no lunch today in preparation.

One last comment about the volcano, it looks like we'll be OK for flying out on Sunday. The British Airways website says that our flight is still scheduled to leave on Sunday at 3PM. The airlines are working on clearing the backlogs, but they're not bumping people who are already booked on future flights. Yet.

Cobh hotels Slideshow