Day 16 Cork, Ireland

A lovely day spent exploring Cork. We were up early to get to the English Market to collect all our food for Christmas. Luckily we got there early, but within 15 minutes there were queues at every counter. Not only were the shop keepers patient and good at recommending food, but we had some interesting conversations with others in the queues including a girl who has been to NZ last year and had stayed in Ashburton where she had a relative! Another lady was heading to NZ in four weeks to walk the Milford Track. We were amused that a young shop keeper asked us where we were from and did we eat Tim Tams! The market was great with an endless selection of cheeses, breads, meat, and seafood. We carried our supplies back to our Air b n B and then found coffee in a nice cafe around the corner. The next couple of hours were spent looking around the shops which were extremely busy, and also enjoying some lovely singing from buskers on the street. We had a pub lunch before heading off for a lovely walk exploring some old Cork streets and churches. The walk took us up and down narrow streets and through several old lanes and alleys. We returned to the flat to take a break and watch some TV, before heading back into town for dinner at Market Lane which was just as lovely as we remembered it, as we had eaten here in 2018. It has been reasonably warm all day but by the time we walked home it was drizzling. Town was reasonably quiet compared to last night. We are bracing ourselves for the trip back down four flights of steps tomorrow, now with suitcases and also our food supplies. We will get a taxi to the airport to pick up our rental car, ready to drive to Killarney for Christmas.Read more