Don’t have a ton to report on my day in Cork.  We had a reasonable drive from Kinsale to the golf course, and then I headed over to Cork, an ancient Irish city, Ireland’s second largest.  I suppose I should have gone to Blarney castle, but I have never found one person or book to recommend it, and it just sounds gross to kiss something so many tourists have been kissing.  So I parked in the center of the city, which is a city very much like many other moderate-to-large cities on planet Earth.  I didn’t even take the camera out of the car.  I started at the English Market, a place rather like Reading Station Market in Philadelphia.  Then I headed out of doors, shopped a little without buying much except a British version of one of the Harry Potter books in a secondhand shop.

I eventually stumbled upon, you guessed it, a walking trail sign.  This time, I was able to orient myself, and walked from informational sign to informational sign, learning the historical importance of the old buildings and churches.    Perhaps the most surprising building was the Butter Exchange, which at some time in the past was a place where butter was gathered and exported to five continents.  They do have some nice butter, here.

I also wandered into a couple of exhibits that were oddly close to home.  One was a tribute to the woman, Joan Denise something, who brought ballet to Ireland.  It was an exhibit of costumes, drawings, videos, and other items related to her career as a dancer, choreographer, and ballet director.  She would have been 100 this year.  The other was an exhibit about the 9/11 attacks with photos and tributes to some of the Irish-Americans who lost their lives as firefighters or police officers.

We had one of our more harrowing drives along the Ring of Kerry, a famously scenic driving loop, that to us was just one more opportunity to possibly drive the car over the edge of a cliff or get the dreaded tire damage that we would have to pay full price for, or at least the deductible of some unimaginable amount.   We and the car were unscathed, though.  Waterville had a sweet sandy beach, and we stayed in a nice B&B.

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