Garryvoe Hotel Castlemartyr

During a chance telephone conversation with my life long friend Donal McClement, he told me that the recession in Ireland was not doing much for his sales as a yacht broker and that he was going away next year for up to six months with Cork architect Stephen Hyde on his beautiful Oyster 56 yacht 'A Lady' to participate in part of the World ARC (Atlantic Rally for Cruisers).<br><br>I fortunately knew Stephen quite ...

Our second day of the trip led us to Cork, Ireland. First the bus<br>system in Ireland is wonderful. They were comfortable, spacious, and<br>even had WI-FI. They will take you anywhere you need to go. The bus ride was about 4 hours. Longer than we expected but seeing as we woke up at 5:30 am after our pub crawl this seemed to work out just fine for us. <br><br>Cork is a beautiful town that sits on a hill and looks out over the river. It isn ...

... From there we had planned to visit Blarney Castle and its grounds but we went into Cork instead as it was too wet to spend too much time outdoors. We visited St Fin Barre's cathedral in Cork, drove around a bit (the traffic was relatively good) before having dinner at a local pub.

... resulted in the loss of life, suffering and tragedy.  The Troubles still haunt Ireland today, and for some reason, during our short stay I felt it taboo to talk about Catholics or Protestants.   Maybe it's just me imagining things, but I do sense that the Irish have not made peace with its dark past of antagonism and hate.  The seeming calm that now exists covers a thick underlying legacy of doubt and mistrust that could easily ...

... ce moment pour voir quels pays j'aimerais le plus visiter lol. Les seuls pays auxquels je pense sont les grands pays, à savoir la France, l'Angleterre, l'Espagne, l'Italie, la Suisse, etc. Sauf que je ne sais même pas comment ils sont placés les uns par rapport aux autres et quels pays il y a entre! Notez que j'ai toujours détesté les cours de géographie (ah! si seulement j'avais écouté en classe!). Je n'ai pas envie de chercher pour un logement. Ma décision est prise: Dédé part ...

... les cheveux de la journée! J'espère que vous avez apprécié. De mon côté, si la tendance se 0aintient je devrais connaître toutes les répliques du film d'ici la fin de l'été! Je dois dire que ma préférée est: "I'm sorry, ma'am, for taking up so much of your time.", avec l'expression qui la précède, bien sûr! Ah! Je suis accroc! Peut-être que je vais décrocher quand j'aurai reçu les anime que mon zamour m'a ...

... really pretty! The sea reminds me of Gaspésie, of my grand-parents, the camp fires on the shore, grilling marshmallows (and dropping one on my dad's big toe by shaking it because it caught on fire), picking up little pieces of glass polished by the waves... Good memories! It's too bad my nose is bloqued =( I love the smell of the sea... And the smell of earth in the rain. I love rain! It rained today, I was happy, even though I was cold. Ok, time for bed! (until ...

... whose job it is to hold on to the dumb tourists was laughing so much because he takes a leak on the Blarney Stone whenever none of them are around. I know I&#8217;d be tempted to. Perhaps a career in mass-tourism just isn&#8217;t the career sea-change I&#8217;m best suited to. <br><br>To try and alleviate the weekend difficulties we&#8217;d had in finding a B&amp;B the night before, Michael and Thelma at Amberleigh House had onward-booked ...

(Originally published at http://www.troysgonewalkabout.com)<br>< br>First thing in the morning and we were back at Kilkenny Castle, but this time for a tour inside. The tour was of course packed with the usual interesting facts and figures of its rooms, furnishings, portraits and antiques rote-learned by the guide which you instantly forget, so they&#8217;re probably not really all that interesting at all. But, I really like castles, and this one was old ...

Pictures from Cork at: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jdugo/Al bums/europe/cork/index.html Taking the early bus out of Galway, Becky and I slept our way down the Western Coast and many small towns. Finding our way in the rain once again, we dropped off our bags and headed to the city center. Cork was named the 2005 European City of Culture according to signs all over the place. The random mix of architecture was very interesting, some very modern architecture mixed with the old ...