Thur. May 26...Day 10

Day 10 May 26, 2011

Do you see what I see in this picture? Yes, that’s right, LAND!! 

 

 We were so excited to see if we were getting close that we turned the television on to see and there it was. After 9 days of just water and very rough water, at that, we were happy to see that we were not lost at sea!!  I grabbed the camera and went up on deck and got some pictures of beautiful Cobh (pronounced “cove”), Ireland.

All day long I only took about 350 pictures so you’ll all have to come to France to see the rest of what we saw today. The cruise line sets up tours and this is one of the places where we decided to take a tour. We got on a bus that took us to the city of Cork. We took a riding tour of the city, which was very interesting. Our tour guide took a liking to us because she knew French and had lived in the Pas de Calais. She was very good as a tour guide.

She told a little story about this foot bridge that crosses over the river. It was built by the Jewish synagogue congregation. They called it “The Passover”!! The city center is built over top of the two rivers. They still have the original water gate that led into the city. But there isn’t any more water. It all runs under the city streets.

 

We then left the city and drove out through the countryside. Ireland is more pasture land and not agricultural.  There are a lot of cows. It is beautiful. The green seems unusual to me. But maybe it was my imagination after only seeing water for 9 days. What do you think?  This picture was taken through the bus window. So you are seeing it just as we saw it.

 We went to the Blarney castle. We walked up to the castle and had planned to go up the 108 steps up to visit, not kiss, the Blarney stone but the lines were too long. So we walked around the gardens and up on the battlements and through a “poison garden”. While Mike and I climbed higher up by the castle, Emily sat below reading her books.  We had a very spring-y sort of day, cool, wind, sprinkles, beautiful sunshine, sprinkles, wind. It was like that all day long.

 Do you see her in her blue jacket?

Then we drove back to the port. We went back on board and had lunch. We got Emily settled in the stateroom then Mike and I walked up into the little port city of Cobh.  We found a hotel that had wi-fi and sat and checked emails and answered some.  Then it was time to head back to the ship. We re-boarded and the ship lifted anchor at 6:00.

And so we are back at sea until tomorrow morning when we will dock in Dublin.

Do you see my souvenir from Ireland? 

 Emily and her critter

 Good night from the coast of Ireland!!!