We are so tired. This will be succinct.
We took "Railtours Ireland" tour to Cork, Blarney Castle, and Cobh. The train trip to Cork took about 3 hours. I recommend this tour company if you ever come here. They do tours all over Ireland. Blarney Castle is the second most popular tourist spot in Ireland. We walked up 123 steps of Blarney Castle and kissed the Blarney Stone. Including standing in line and walking back down, about 1 hour total. We were then given time to have lunch and shop.
Then we rode in a bus through the town of Cork, which looks like a pretty cool place to hang put for a few days (second largest city in the Irish Republic).
We then proceeded to the town of Cobh (formerly Queenstown), which has the distinction of being linked to two shipping disasters. It was the last port of call for the Titanic before it sail for New York in 1912, and the Lusitania was sunk by a torpedo just outside the harbor (in 300 feet of water) in 1915. A cemetery there has three mass graves with the bodies of victims, many of them American. There is an interesting shipping exhibit right next to the train station, where we boarded our train to return to Dublin.
This tour took an entire day (left at 7 am, returned at 8:25 pm) and totally worth it.
Actually rode the trolly (Kate calls it a tram) back to the hotel and had a quiet dinner so we could do this blog and post our pictures.
David and Sarah, I hope we can all get the same vacation some time in the future and return to Ireland and spend more time.
Love to everyone back home.
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