Kinsale

Thursday, 22 August 2019

Wow...I slept until 9:30 AM, Tim had just waken up and it appeared Barb was still sleeping.  Christine was the only one up an moving earlier than that.  We all took our time and was enjoying a leisurely breakfast when I realized it was 10:30 AM.  There is a tour I want us all to take at 11 AM.  "Let's go, we have less than 30 minutes to get to the start of the tour!"  Everyone jumped into action, and we were out the door and to the starting point of the historic tour with 15 minutes to spare, because the tour was starting at 11:15 AM...whew.

When we saw the crowd that was taking the tour, we weren't sure if we wanted to hang around, but we decided to give it a chance.  Don's tour comes highly recommended by Rick Steves, so we stuck to it.  After 5 minutes, we were hooked and happy we joined.  Don made the story of the town interesting and unforgettable.  What a great tour.

Barbra and Christine enjoying Don's story

The ships that sailed back in the day. This is on a weather vane on top of the TI (Tourist Information) building

Main street of town that used to be where the tide came up to.

Beautiful Kinsale

The narrow streets of Kinsale

Don used to have to walk up these steps to school every day. He said there were 66 steps.

Me intently listening to the story of Kinsale

After the tour was over, Don told us were to see a portion of the old wall that is still intact.  On the walk up, there was a cafe with the Old Mother Hubbard story painted on the side of the building.  I knew the first verse, but someone left out the other verses when I was growing up.

Old Mother Hubbard
Went to the cupboard,
To give the poor dog a bone:
When she came there,
The cupboard was bare,
And so the poor dog had none.

---

She went to the alehouse
To get him some beer;
When she came back
The dog sat in a chair.

---

She went to the baker’s
To buy him some bread;
When she came back
The dog was dead!

---

We continued the walk up to the old wall:

Made from old wooden barrels

Christine and I at the old city wall

A view looking down from the wall

Banksy?

Some old building in town.

Time for lunch.  How about Fish and Chips!

After lunch we were ready to walk the 1.5 miles to the Charles Fort.  The view during this walk was supposed to be beautiful, and it did not disappoint.

We will definitely be stopping at this pub on the way back to town.

See you soon

After a long, beautiful walk, we made it to the Charles Fort, a star-shaped fort built int he 17th century to protect the port.

Made it

Charles Fort, a star-shaped fort built in the 17th century

As promised, we stopped back at the Bulman Pub we passed on the way here.

Tim taking a photo of Christine and Barb though a mirror at our table.

We took the high road back and got some more incredible views.

Kinsale in the background

Look over there, points Christine

Enjoying the view

Just one last big downhill

Playing in the low tide

We finally made it back to town just before 6 PM.  We decided to prepare our own dinner tonight, so we went to the market to buy some food.  The first place we went was pretty small, but Tim found a rotisserie chicken he couldn't resist.  The rest of us wanted to go to a bigger place, so I found Lidel on the map and we all set off.  We were suddenly looking up a wall / hill that Lidel sat on top of.  Tim said that he had already found dinner and was going to go back to the AirBnB, so Barbra, Christine, and I climbed up the hill for shopping.  

We returned to the AirBnB just before 7 PM.  There was one small walking tour in the guide book that i still wanted to do, so Tim and I took off before eating.  One of the stops was St Multose Church built in 1190 making it one of the oldest Protestant churches in Ireland.

Another interesting fact about Kinsale is that is was 10 miles off the coast of here that the Lithuania was sunk by a German torpedo.  It was this act that motivated the United States to enter World War 1.  There are a couple of graves of victims of "The Lusitania Outrage of 1915" which seem to be guarded by a cat.

Here Kitty, Kitty

We then came across one of the three fresh water wells that Don had told us about.  This one is called The Pauper's Well.  This well was open to the public, unlike other wells that were protected by the rich to ensure they didn't get contaminated.

Tim and I returned to the AirBnB and we all enjoyed dinner.  We are leaving tomorrow by 8 AM, so everyone was in bed around 10 PM, except me since I am trying to catch up on the blog.  I am finally caught up and am actually typing up today's blog today.  Woohoo.

Tomorrow is an early morning.  We have a lot to see and a 3.5 hours of driving.  It should be a wonderful day.

Oh...today Tim seemed to like photographing flowers, so I put together a collection of today's flower shots. Enjoy!