I had set the alarm for 6am. The plan was to have breakfast at 7 when the restaurant opened, catch the bus for downtown and then take the airport bus to the airport, collect the EuroCar rental car, drive back to the hotel, collect our luggage and stuff, and head for Cork by way of Glendalough, a national historic site.

And, as usual, things didn’t go as planned. I thought we would be back to the hotel by 10am. We barely made it back by noon, the designated checkout deadline. The airport bus took an hour by itself, which included a rather extensive tour all over the city picking up people. Then there was quite a wait at the rental car counter (figures, being a Monday morning with all the business travelers coming into town). Then we had an issue with the car’s windshield wipers. Turns out you can’t just have them replaced … they had to replace the entire car, with a French car. All of the instrumentation is in German. I still haven’t figured out how to change it to be in English. I’m sure it’s possible, but in the usual French fashion, they have their own way to do things that are not necessarily obvious to Yanks. Getting out of the parking slot was a serious challenge. We couldn’t figure out how to release the parking brake. Most cars have a lever or a foot pedal. Not this car. I finally found someone who could help. Turns out there’s a button on the center console that one has to start the car (clutch in, press on the brake pedal, push the Start button) then hold the button down for at least 10 seconds to release the Parking Assist Brake.

Glendalough became a religious Catholic retreat in the early 600’s. It flourished for at least 1200 years. Established as a priory, it had a fairly large monastic contingent along with quite a few pilgrims and other priests taking a sabbatical or a religious retreat. Today the cathedral is in ruins along with a few other buildings. A small chapel is intact but closed to visitors. There’s a large cemetery, but the readable headstones are from the 1800’s forward. It was a beautiful, drizzly day and quite a ways inland and in the mountains. It was well after 4pm when we finally drove way for the remaining 3-hour drive to our bed and breakfast in Cork.

Fortunately the last 2 hours of the drive were on the motorway (think of an Interstate highway with occasional toll booths) with a 120km speed limit (about 72 mph). We arrived at the B&B just before 7pm.

We have a nice, but very small room. The double bed and a second single bed take up most of the room. There’s a small room with a toilet and a shower. Getting into and out of the shower is a contortionist ordeal. Neither of us really know how to work the shower, either. There are two knobs, neither of which do anything expected.

However, the room is nice. The beds are comfortable and we had no trouble sleeping. The hostess is a delightful woman. We’ll have a good stay here.

Dinner was across the street. The food was excellent although quite expensive. Doesn’t matter. The budget is already blown.