I’m definitely getting mouth herpes after today, also I’m always tired?

(Pre note) Today is currently the 24/07 so the below post is covering the 23/07. Thought I’d take a day break today as I mentioned below I’ve been feeling very tired so need a good night’s sleep. Today was boring anyway we just drove. I’ll pop a gallery up soon though for photos! So please enjoy the recap below for yesterday xoxo

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Today was a solid day in Cork, although we made sure to not have a crazy productive day.

Whilst we’ve been staying at Airbnbs recently throughout Ireland and the UK, for some reason they were ridiculously expensive in Cork, so we’ve booked a BnB for these 2 nights instead. So we did have to get up a little early this morning to make it to breakfast, as obviously we couldn’t just have it whenever. We were downstairs and eating by 9am, which I was fine with (given I’ve been going to sleep late recently, and my disdain for the meal that is breakfast).

I had a couple of errands to run and bits and bobs to buy, and our only major attraction around was Blarney Castle. We decided to do the Castle and grounds first in the morning, mostly just in case it would get busier in the afternoon. I’d say we were there around 11am, and didn’t have to wait at all, we just walked straight in. Dad and I both underestimated how much there was to see with the castle and the grounds, we spent a decent couple of hours exploring and walking around. Of course we first visited the Blarney Castle itself, and climbed both towers to investigate all the different rooms. Honestly my favourite castle we visited would still have to be the Rock of Cashel, but Blarney was definitely imposing, and they had more info up about it so I learnt a lot more at Blarney than I did at Cashel. They did a lot more with the purpose of the Castle (being a defensive structure) so they explained a lot about how they would use the defensive apparatus to protect it from an oncoming army. They had everything, my personal favourite being the ‘murder hole’, whereby soldiers would pour burning water, melted fat, or tar, onto incoming soldiers from above through a chute. Honestly pretty creative.

We also had to kiss the Blarney Stone when we reached the very top level of the castle. Kissing the Stone is said to improve eloquence, which honestly guys, I write these at like 10:30-11pm every night, so I could do with some more eloquence. Not sure how we’re going on that front today, please do let me know. Actually kissing the Stone is a process in itself which I didn’t realise. You’ve got to lie on your back, have a member of staff hold you so you don’t fall backwards out of the castle, then pull yourself inside the stone wall to kiss the specific part. I think I’ve got a picture in today’s gallery of me doing it, spoiler alert Dad’s attempt was significantly less graceful. Will update on whether I get mouth herpes or not, apparently everyone gets sick after kissing it, which I 100% get why, the Stone’s been kissed by over 3 million people, so the germs just really be germ-ing.

Wanting to get away from the hordes of Yanks complaining about having to walk up steps to get to the top (not joking) we walked from the Castle to find the fern garden, as we’d heard it was lovely. We were the only 2 people on the whole path, which was initially surprising given how touristy the area was. But then considering how ‘difficult’ it was to walk a staircase, maybe it was no surprise there weren’t many people doing an extra 5km walk around the gardens. Anyway, we soon found the fern garden, and oh my god it was just stunning. Like truly stunning. It was so lush and green, very faerie-glade-esque. I felt like I had been transported from Ireland to the rainforests in Malaysia I visited 2 years ago, it was a very surreal experience. Most of the photos from today’s gallery are from the fern garden and the surrounding gardens, they were just stunning, and we had such wonderful weather it was the perfect way to make the most of it.

Whilst everything we saw was stunning, and I learnt lots, I was a bit zoned out for most of the day. I haven’t had the best sleep schedule (I think I’ve mentioned this before maybe) and our habit of cramming lots in everyday means I need more sleep than I’m getting. I realised tonight we had 13 nights left in Ireland, which honestly is very daunting. Keeping up this level of go, go, go, is simply unsustainable for us, and thankfully Dad agrees. We’re leaving Cork tomorrow to continue on our clockwise loop, next basing ourselves in Castlemaine, close to the Dingle Peninsula and the Ring of Kerry. We’ve got 4 nights here, so we’re trying to schedule in a couple hours in the afternoon before dinner everyday to do nothing, or catchup on stuff happening at home, that way it won’t feel too intense. At the end of the day we want to see and do as much as we can, and I love doing that, but without rest we’ll end up getting sick of each other, then nothing will be fun. Hopefully taking this into account now will help mitigate what I would call ‘inevitable conflict’.

Anyway after finishing up at Blarney, we drove back into Cork centre to visit The English Market, which came highly recommended both by Irish people I know and also from people we’d met in Cork the night before. It’s a large Market, I believe started in the early 18th century, which hosts local produce, products and dining. It was a great environment, and though we didn’t explore the whole area, I would definitely do all my food shopping there if I lived here. We did find something for lunch though, I was overjoyed to find fresh sushi rolls. I hadn’t realised just how much I’ve been missing sushi, but ugh it was just too good.

After our lunch stop we headed back to our bnb for scheduled rot time (highly appreciated) then walked back into town to find a pub for dinner- I ordered their fish taco from the entrée section and mmhmm it was divine. Weirdly I’ve found my appetite to be quite lacking whilst we’re here. I’m not sure why, considering I’m more active than I would be at home, but I’ve been eating entrees a lot for dinner when we go out, and honestly, it’s a massive life hack. If you’re in the UK (or Ireland of course) and are getting sick of monotonous pub food, I would highly recommend bypassing them altogether and ordering one or 2 entrees instead. I’ve realised that’s where anything on offer that’s fun and adventurous will be, and is the most likely section to be unique to your location. So that’s a win for me!

Now we’re back at our bnb, I’ve packed up most of the things that we need for tomorrow’s drive to the Dingle area, although a great benefit of having a car is that anything I can’t be bothered packing I can just chuck in the back somewhere and find it again later.

I think driving tomorrow should be good to force to unwind a little bit, then we can get stuck into exploring west Ireland!

Currently MIA,

Lauren x