So...waking up early didn't work. I blame it on the bar. And the cider. And the jam session. And the fantastic mushroom soup I had at Jim Edward's pub, at 11 o'clock at night. Then again, why blame anybody - who the hell gets up early on vacation (except me, usually?)
In any event, we were up and at by 9(ish), and after partaking of Jimmy's lovely breakfast we were off and at'em. (As an aside, the breakfasts that we've had in all the little B&B's here in Ireland have been marvelous. I am eternally in love with Irish brown bread, Mom is hoarding Irish butter by the pound, and I am reminding myself every day that living here would be bad, since I would eventually collapse the Cliffs of Moher with my weight if I ate brown bread every day. Although I wonder how much I can fit in my suitcase if I leave all my clothing behind...)
We got a little bit of an economic reality check as soon as we left Jimmy's - right around the corner from his place is the office of Social Welfare Services, and even at 9 am, the line was enormous. I'd heard that the Irish economy wasn't doing very well, but this was the first hard evidence we'd seen of any problem existing.
Then again, two blocks down the street (I love these little towns where you can walk the whole shebang in under twenty minutes), there was a bustling market going on. We decided to come back to it around lunch time, and have a stroll around the town first. We stopped to get a little puppy love, from a gentleman taking his boys out for a walk (and to see dogs on a leash is very uncommon here, but these beasties were young'uns yet)...
..and then we went to see another church (yes, yes, it was lovely, and medieval, and you know, church-y). Post-church going, and per Rick Steve's advice (best book so far!), we stopped for a historical stroll with Don Herlihy. I had thought up until this point that the excellence of guides here was something intrinsic to the OPW offices, but Don blew that supposition right out of the water. He's a licensed guide, fer sure, but doesn't work for OPW and still managed to make a 90 minute (Irish time, so more like 2 hours) walk incredibly interesting and worthwhile. He's a very genial man, who started off our chat by finding out where everyone was from, and if we had any particular interests - my interests, for example, are more geological in nature - I could care less about Spanish armadas, but I will talk about limestone and shale formation all day long. Linda and Mom, on the other hand, wanted the people side of things, and would probably have fallen comatose in the harbor with any more than glancing references to the historical significance of sedimentary deposits and rock striation. I'm not sure why the couple from Canada was there, but they were fun, so why worry? Don's walk was quite nice, not only because there were only 5 of us, but because he managed to balance both the physical and the popular history of Kinsale in such a way as to not have anyone face down and drooling on the sidewalk.
We started off in the harbor (natch, since Kinsale is a harbor town), and he gave us a bit of history on the formation of the natural harbor, and the history of the "End of the World", the western most harbor and last refueling point for sailing ships prior to the discovery of America by our favorite Genoan, Chris Columbus. (And did you know that the RMS Lusitania was sunk off the coast of Kinsale? Wicked!)
(I personally thought starting at the harbor was a bit amusing, since the tide was most definitely out, and you could tell who'd closed down the pub last night.)
Home by 11....
...and last one out the door.
All in all, it was absolutely lovely. The weatherman had predicted thunderstorms, and apparently the Irish school of meteorology follows the same program as the American one, since the skies were overcast all day but there wasn't a thunderstorm to be had. Not that I'm complaining, don't get me wrong - we walked all around the town, learning bits of history...
...enjoying the locals...
(Don greeted this guy by name)
(and introduced us to Tony, who stopped his loud machine so we could hear Don talk - fantastic!)
...and even making new friends.
(in case you can't see him, here's a closeup. He was SUPER cute, and didn't bark at us once!)
Without a doubt, Kinsale is a fabulous and charming little town, where even the graffiti is sweet!
(There were apples chalked on buildings all over town. I have no idea why, and no one seemed to know who had done it, but how fabulous is it that the Irish version of a marauding building defacer runs around drawing apples in white schoolhouse chalk? I love this country!)
Then again, they make up for it in strange parking signs. I saw this on the street, and wasn't quite sure what it meant - can you only park there if you ARE a doctor? Or if you're visiting the doctor? Or if your last name is Doctor? It wasn't in front of a doctor's office, or even near a hospital, so that only left me more confused. Good thing it was across the street from the pub...then again, maybe it's for people that go to the pub, and who know they're going to need a doctor later on that night?
After the super-fantaz-great walk with Don, it was about lunchtime, so we decided to hit the market. Looking back, (and having to bend sideways to see around my hips) I can see that this was a bad idea. Not only because of the Raspberry-Something-or-Other tart that Mom got (O.M.G.- I am not a fan of cakey tarts, but it almost made me *drool* on myself), or because of the delicious chicken skewers we had for lunch, or even because of the to-die-for chocolate pastry that Linda and I sampled (and sampled)...but mostly because of this guy:
Nicest guy ever, who in fact also does the evening "ghost tours" of Kinsale, but who is so unassuming that you would never recognize the face of pure evil that he wears underneath, until you see the wares he's peddling:
We were first in line, but as it all looked so delicious, we let another woman go in front of us (mistake, as it happened, since she was just as indecisive and ordering about 34 kilos of cheese - see how I live, and you learn? Lesson from Kinsale - just cut to the cheese). Anyway, Cheese Man offered us samples of all of the cheeses to help make up our minds, and I fell in love with the local smoked offerings. Luckily, I am the only one that likes smoked cheeses, so we didn't end up getting alot of those, but we did end up buying almost 2 kilos (a little over 4 lbs) of cheese. All of which I have now safely ensconced in my backside.
The best part of the descent into Cheevil (Cheese Evil, for those that have problems with contractions), was the little piece of Beezlebubian deliciousness called Stout Cheddar. If you look at the picture above, it's that mottled or marbled piece in the lower right hand corner...and if you've ever had the pleasure of tasting it, you may have to wipe the drool off your screen to see it clearly. It's this lovely distinctive cheese where they take the local cheddars, which are a bit sharp, but very smooth, chop them up, and then combine them with Guinness Stout, and age it into a cheese.
O_O
If I had been the person to invent this, my heirs would have inherited as infants, since my arteries would have closed up shop shortly after it's discovery. It's THAT good. We bought about a quarter round, and I snarfed almost all of it in the next two days. I would have eaten more, but I didn't pack any pants with elastic waistbands, and public nudity is illegal even in Ireland.
Back to the market - I'm not sure if the market is everyday, or if we happened to luck out and be there on market day, but even without the cheese - No Can Live Here, Unless Become Gargantua Girl. The main culprit in the end was not Irish brown bread or Stout Cheddar, but these delicious things called Twister Cakes.
They're about 10 inches tall, hollow, and basically a rolled up strip of dough that comes off as you pull in a big spiral. They smelled soooo good, and I *did* walk past the booth about 4 times before I bought one, so I probably worked off the first bite. Maybe. There was coconut, or powdered sugar, or almond, or cinnamon...what to do, what to do?!?!? I went with the cinnamon, since Mom and Linda both liked it, and that way they could help me eat it, if they could get their fingers past my snapping teeth. It was delicious, it was memorable, it was something I'd never seen before, and it was utterly consumed within nanoseconds. (I do have the memory of it safely stored in my fat cells, however, so I will be able to enjoy it for years and years to come.) *Sigh*
Post-market extravaganza, we headed up the hill toward Charles Fort, taking Don's advice to drive the harbor road, despite the construction. See what happens when you listen to the locals? It may take you an extra 15 minutes to get there, but you end up with lovely views.
Even though the thunderstorms had held off, it did turn out to be a very windy day, and here's where our new "let's go with the flow" style of planning takes a turn to the darker side. Charles Fort (one of the two forts guarding Kinsale harbor), is TWELVE ACRES of historical goodness. Twelve. Acres. Did I mention we'd just come from stuffing ourselves nearly insensate at the market?
Hmmm...daunting.
Well, maybe it's best that we wander the ramparts - that'll alleviate the guilt when we eat the rest of the cheese later.
Though I won't go into the history of Charles Fort, other than to quote Fodor's and tell you that it's one of "Europe's best-preserved "star forts", encloses some 12 cliff-top acres and is similar to Fort Ticonderoga in New York State", I will tell you it's a pretty great walk for a pleasant afternoon. Not having a helicopter handy, the best aerial view I can give you is the one OPW displays (again with the greatness of OPW - they are MONEY!):
There was also a neat map of it inlaid into the ground...
...with all of the important parts CLEARLY marked.
I love it.
So, we wandered the ruins...
...joked a bit about having Big Guns (which I sure as hell don't after all those pastries and cheese... good thing there were some at the fort!)...
...almost stood on the ramparts (just kidding - this is strictly VERBOTEN! Although I *did* lean over the edge as far as I could...)...
...and enjoyed the view of the coastline.
Every tourist website will tell you that the recommended visit for the fort is about an hour, and I'm here to tell you that the only way you're going to accomplish that is if you bring a Segway with you, and even then the ground is so uneven that you'll probably end up being pitched into the bay within the first 15 minutes, so toss that idea right out the window.
Perhaps it's a different vibe in high summer when the land is choked with tourists, but there were probably only 20 or so people here when we came, and we were there for a while. There are a ton of buildings to explore...
...vantage points to climb up into...
...secret nooks and crannies to avoid without having a full-body Biohazard suit...
...and impromptu wind tunnels to get blown through, although I'm pretty sure that this is unintentional and will only happen on a windy day. Coincidentally (or perhaps not, depending on the odor), this tunnel leads to the restrooms.
All in all, though I wasn't really into the history of the place (Mom ran around reading all of that information - I haven't read any historical stuff since I finished my history minor in college...), but it was a very nice afternoon. Linda enjoyed the breeze up on the ramparts of Devil's Bastion (natch, given her traveling companions)...
...while Mom read up on the past, and I indulged my secret love of photographing pigeons. No, I don't know why they fascinate me, they just do. Don't judge me.
Even with the 20 minutes Linda and I spent marveling at the tree growing inside one of the buildings (yes, an actual full-size tree - perhaps deposited by the pigeons?)...
...we still got on the road while it was light to head to our next destination - the Dingle Peninsula. I kind of like that they don't use Daylight Savings here - it was after 6 by the time we got underway, and we still had hours of daylight to burn!
The day was great - wandering a small seafaring town, eating our weight in cheese, traipsing through derelict buildings that are centuries old...and what would a drive through rural Ireland be without at least one sheep giving us the old "Huh... Tourists!" glare?
There wasn't too much more activity to the day - Mom and I are usually pretty frenetic when we travel, but there was so much driving involved in this trip that we ended up taking it sort of easy. We didn't even eat out on our way to Dingle Town, but instead stopped at a local grocery (and those who know my Mom's frugal ways won't be surprised by the name at all...LOL)...
...where I found out, to my horror, that Hannah Montana is indeed taking over the world. Run for your life.
After I recovered enough from the trauma to continue driving, we headed straight to Dingle, no more detours. (Well, except for a few minutes at Lahinch Beach...but it was SO worth it, even though sticking my fingers in the water resulted in immediate frostbite...
...and there was an old man there walking his dog. I was so focused on getting the shot that I didn't notice the dog standing on the rocks below me, looking directly at me, until he barked. Of course, he immediately took off, and I missed the shot, but he was super cute, with a super wide grin, and covered in sand from running in the surf. )
So, another day of our vacation bites the dust, and we've arrived in Dingle Town, perched on one of the most beautiful coastlines in the world. I can't wait to get started, but for now I need a nap, and it's time to call it a night.
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