Dublin to Cork

Chris was our taxi driver from the hotel out to where we would collect our hire car today. He appeared in the lobby, took my suitcase and said, "Let me take that for you, my love."

I sighed, "Awwh. Am I your love?"

With a wonderful grin he replied, "Now don't be lettin' da wife hear ya say dat!"

What is it about taxi drivers? They can be so entertaining. Chris was born and bred in Dublin, but joined the Merchant Navy at 16 years of age, sailing all around the world, but never as far as Australia.

We had to wait for an hour for our hire car. It seemed their paperwork said we would be collecting it from the airport. Interestingly, they never explained that until Woodsie asked them what had caused the holdup. I thought in Australia, the blame would have been thrown back on us, with staff pointing out THEY expected US to be at the airport. These people just kept smiling and apologising for the delay. They also upgraded the vehicle and removed the GPS charge for us.

I was most amused by the sign on their office door.




The sign, placed on the door BELOW the letterbox, asks for keys to be returned through the letter box below. How wonderfully Irish!

Our first destination was the linear village of Avoca. Now that apparently means the village lines a main street, and is not set around a square, which is what the creator of TV series 'Ballykissangel' had intended. But the producer thought Avoca would be perfect as a location.

We had morning tea in Fitzgerald's Pub, used in the show, which has some photo memorabilia on the walls. It features each character, with a good description of them. No actor's name is mentioned. The focus is solely on the characters who inhabited this fictitious Irish country village. One face I did recognise. Colin Farrell played a 19 year old in maybe one of his first roles.











Avoca is such a gorgeous little place.










Then we drove on to another picturesque spot, Glendalough. This was all through country lanes, that constantly wound around hills, through little settlements of houses, past farms, revealing a patchwork of hedged fields, dry stone walls, crops and livestock at every bend.

In one village, we followed a tractor up the narrow street.



Often the trees had grown up to form an arch above the road.




Finally we reemerged onto main motorways. Twice we encountered toll roads. I had pad and pen ready to record phone numbers in case we had to make contact to pay, a la Melbourne.

It turned out both times to be far simpler. Each vehicle slows, chooses between several lanes, according to whether you have exact money or not. The fee for each type of vehicle is clearly displayed, so Woodsie would just fling the correct Euro coins in a big funnel, which automatically detected we were entitled to have the barrier raised, to continue on our way.








Motorways are straighter, faster and wider, but the scenery is less interesting. We caught several glimpses of old ruins though. It rained for part of the journey, and we could not tune into any interesting talk or music radio station.

We arrived in Cork around 5 o'clock, just in time for peak traffic. Our hotel gave us an automatic gate opener to park in a nearby church yard. Some of the streets are quite steep, so luckily we were walking down.

This side of the river seems older, more tired and battered. After dinner we walked over St. Patrick's Bridge, to the main shopping area. Here the buildings were restored and well maintained.

I thought a small chocolate bar would be a good idea, and nipped into a small shop just as the young man was bringing in the outdoor tables and chairs.

"Any chance I can be your last customer tonight?"

He said, "Certainly. If you come back at 11 o'clock. I am must bringing these in as any time from now on, they just become weapons."