I didn’t bring my MacBook with me, just my iPad along with a bluetooth keyboard. The Logitech keyboard gave up the ghost somewhere along the route to Ireland. I’ve been writing using the keyboard on the screen, which is a veritable pain in the rear. Yesterday while wandering the streets of Cork I saw an computer repair shop. They had a small bluetooth keyboard. I really like it … much better than the Logitech keyboard. Now I’d like to figure out how to add pictures from the iPhoto library. On my MacBook at home I export the pictures I want to use and then import them into WordPress. Not so simple on the iPad. Pictures taken on the iPhone first have to migrate to iCloud and then get sync’d down to the iPad. That seems to take a Very Long Time to happen.
Further, trying to get around without having a cell phone connection just doesn’t work. I’ve ordered international roaming for my iPhone … $10.00 a day. Being so disconnected was just plain too frustrating. Google Maps is literally indispensable over here, even when it sends us to completely the wrong place. That happens most often when I drop a pin and then ask Google to give me directions to the pin. Every time we’ve ended up somewhere very strange.
Yesterday evening when we drove into town I noticed that the low tire icon was lit up. We were planning to drop off our laundry this morning and there was a EuroCar location in that area, so I went there. The guy was able to switch the car display from German to English, but now I have a speedometer rather than just the digital speed display (which I liked better). The passenger rear tire was low, according to a display that, now that everything was in English, we could find. He put in the address for their tire facility into my phone and off we went. Google got us almost there … two doors too far down the street. The tire had a nail in it. It was quickly fixed. I dropped a pin where the laundry was located, asked for directions there, and we ended up down by the docks. There was no icon on the map for the laundry, but there was one for a nearby gas station. I selected that and we got where we wanted to go. No more trying to navigate to a dropped pin. The laundry could have been picked up tonight, but we didn’t want to be constrained to be back by 6pm (and we weren’t).
The main event for the day was the Blarney Castle and the Blarney Stone. Blarney is about a half-hour west of Cork, an easy drive. We parked in the pay-for lot, bought our tickets (14 Euro each, senior citizen price), and walked to the castle. It looks just like it does in the pictures in the guidebooks and on the net. There was a line, which meant that climbing the stairs wasn’t as arduous as it could have been. Every few steps we had to wait a bit. When we finally got to the top, literally the only thing one could do was lay down, slide way down (with a guy holding on), and kiss the wall. We both did the deed. Now we’re waiting for the promised eloquence to manifest itself.
The whole process is rather contrived. To make it more interesting, they’ve created some walking routes around the castle that take in things like a “poison garden” with all kinds of lethal plants (out of reach, of course), some caves, a small pond, and such. We just went to the castle, climbed the stairs, did the Blarney Slide, and went back to the car. then we drove into the town of Blarney and had lunch at a local pub (Diet 7-Up this time).
It was now 2pm. About a half-hour south was the quaint town of Kinsale which featured a very well preserved Star Fort. That sounded interesting, and it was. I’m still waiting for pictures to sync. Maybe I’ll add them later. After the fort, which was definitely a highlight of the trip, we went back into town to the oldest church in town, built in about 1140 AD. That was another highlight.
Wahoo! Pictures have sync’d. First picture is the Blarney Castle. 2nd picture is at the top of the castle. The Blarney Stone is on the far wall where the people are congregated. One gets to the top, does the Blarney Slide (my made up words), goes back down. About a hundred steps each direction.
This is some of the interior of the Charles Fort just south of Kinsale. It was quite a large facility, retired from service after the end of WW1. Around the 1970’s someone got the idea that it might want to be preserved. Restoration work has been going on since then.
One of the types of places we wanted to visit on this trip were old churches and cathedrals. This is the old Church of Ireland church in Kinsale:
Beautiful building, well preserved, and a delight to visit.
Finally, the cathedral in Cork:
A magnificent gothic cathedral built in the 1840’s.
Enough for today. We’re off to Galway tomorrow.