Ireland Trip Day 5: Rock of Cashel Castle & Cork (Draft)

We packed up, said bye to our little hut and made our way to Rock of Cashel Castle.

Unfortunately, they had sections closed off due to restorations but because they had ongoing restorations they didn’t charge any admission fees today. We walked around and took some great pictures. There are signs but if you are like me, you may get confused by roundabouts. Thankfully, if you go past the turn for Rock of Cashel, there is another little parking area to stop and turn around at to then get off on the correct street from the roundabout. There is a car park at the bottom that costs €4.50 (euros). In that specific car park, the first 20 minutes are free however it takes a bit to walk up the hill and to the castle. Especially if you explore all areas of the castle and around it, it takes longer than 20 minutes but you can complete it in approximately an hour if you take your time. Honestly €4.50 for parking isn’t bad at all.

Cork

We then hopped on M8 and made our way to Cork. We thought we missed the toll area and might have panicked for a short amount of time because we didn’t know what would happen if we did. Thankfully we didn’t miss it. On M8 heading into Cork there is no way to miss the toll as all lanes come to a booth. Also, don’t let TV shows and advertisements fool you. Cork is a big port city. Coming into Corck had my anxiety going crazy trying to figure out where to go or where to turn. There are multiple lane roundabouts that are full of traffic and construction and it took a good minute. We only had to circle the hotel once before Luke had me follow a car down another street which lead to the multilevel parking garage. Since I was so nervous driving in, it took a bit to park in the small spaces. The first spot was a little too small for our car so we found another parking spot on the second level and it was much better.
We arrived early and couldn’t check into our hotel yet but they had a coffee shop in the lobby so we sat and drank a couple mocha.
We the walked around and walked through the English market before wondering around to a really interesting looking church and touring it and around it. We happened to stumble upon the Miyazaki Japanese Take Away but unfortunately they were closed on Mondays so we won’t have a chance to eat there. Instead we made our way back to Oliver Plunkett’s were we stopped for a late lunch.
We finished lunch and wondered back to our hotel to checking a little after 4pm. We got settled in the room and published a couple blog posts we were working on including Ireland Day 1. Then we decided to walk around some more. We ventured more down and around St. Patrick’s Street which offers lots of shopping. We then made our way back to the Globe restaurant in our hotel and a had dinner and a couple drinks.