Our breakfast was very nice and our hostess filled us in on where to go in town. We took the 207 bus into the city, but didn’t know exactly where to get off. We ended up riding the bus all the way to the end of the line and then back to the city center, which turned out to be less than 2 miles from the B&B. Cork is quite a bit smaller than Dublin!!! Nina found this quite hilarious.
We wanted to see the cathedral. I looked up Cork Cathedral on Google Maps and got a walking route. The building was on the top of a hill which was quite a climb for us. Most of the way there we came across a small square with benches. While catching our breath and resting our feet, we noticed a sign “The Butter Museum” over the door of a nearby building. Curiosity reigned … and it turned out to be a museum about the butter trade in Ireland. The cattle in Ireland are grass fed, whereas in the US almost all of the butter is made from grain-fed cattle. Grass-fed butter has a better taste, easier to spread, and contains beneficial nutrition we learned. The national brand for butter is “Kelly Gold” and it is good butter. I’ll want to look for it in the US (which has a quota on how much butter can be imported).
The cathedral turned out to be the wrong one. It was a cathedral, but quite modern. It’s called the North Cathedral by the locals. The one we wanted was equal distance south of the city center as the North Cathedral is. The only benefit was that we were walking downhill.
The Saint Fin Barre Cathedral is magnificent. It’s an Irish Church cathedral (not a Catholic cathedral). It was build in the mid 1800’s in a gothic style. Very nice. They also had a labyrinth which we visited and Nina walked the entire course. A labyrinth is not a maze, just a pathway that winds around into the center and then winds back out. One way in, one way out. Of course Nina had to stop and “meditate” in the center. In the past, these were called “Road to Jerusalem” before they were called “labyrinth”.
We walked all over downtown and found a shop for ice cream. We took the 207 bus back to the hotel thinking that we could take our laundry to a launderette we saw on the way into town. We got there at 6:15pm to find it closed at 6. So we drove into town and parked in a parking garage. Turns out all the places to eat that we saw earlier in the day served lunch … but were closed at 6pm. We finally found a pub called Oyster Tavern that served dinner. Then back to the B&B. Tomorrow we’re headed to Blarney and the Blarney stone!
No rain today. Crystal clear skies and temps in the low 70’s. A very nice day.