July 14th, 2018
History
Founded in the 7th century by St. Fin Barre, Cork County is your gateway to romantic Ireland. Tour the delightful villages of Kinsale and Youghal, one of the few medieval towns in Ireland, and head on to Blarney Castle. Set in a sprawling park, this romantic ruin features 18-foot-thick walls and amazing views. It is home to the legendary Blarney Stone, which is said to bequeath the gift of eloquence on those who kiss it. (We did not partake of the tour to the Blarney Castle, but experienced the town of Cobh instead.) Cobh is home of the “Last Port of Call” for the Titanic.
First ‘Port of Call’
Our first ‘port of call’ is Cobh (pronounced “Cove”), Ireland, a quaint town under a beautiful blue sky. As we did not have any excursions planned for the day, we left the ship around 10AM and enjoyed the unusual sunny, warm day. As I looked back at our ship, the harbor and town were dwarfed by the immense size of “The Royal Princess”.
We walked into town and behold the flowers! Everywhere. The streets were lined with flowers in pots, on street corners, hanging from awnings, in store windows, by the bandstand, by the café tables… everywhere! Obviously the town of Cobh cares what the tourists think of their town!
Up the street on the waters edge, was an old abandoned pier or fishing dock – having long outlived its usefulness and safety. As I took this picture an official Yellow vested worker was seriously taking inventory of the dock. Further down the shoreline, a woman gathers mussels for dinner. Up a different alley, we saw a batch of empty Guinness kegs piled high waiting to be traded in for full Guinness kegs.
After walking about town for a while, we decided to have lunch at a sidewalk café while enjoying the rarity of a warm, sunny day in Ireland. After lunch we took a bus tour around Cobh – taking in the highlights. The big industry, besides tourism, in Cobh is sheep farming. On our tour we saw flocks and flocks of sheep nibbling on waist high grass that was swaying in the breeze.
One of our stops on the tour, was at an Old Church Cemetery where famous drunken poets are buried beside patriots and rebel rousers. Is it only in death that we can co-exist side-by-side? There were a lot of unnamed stones…. from centuries ago – as moss has re-etched the marker names.
The tour navigated in and out of the city and countryside:
Last stop, at St. Patrick’s Cathedral where a wedding was just finishing up, rice flying high overhead. (We thought of ‘photo-bombing’ the wedding photos but then… thought better of it.) One can see from this harbor view, how important the church was to the peasants and how the town grew around the church.
Back on board the Princess by 4pm, we settled onto our balcony to wave goodbye to Cobh, Ireland. After a leisurely dinner we set out for the Princess Theater to watch the Princess singers and dancers do a ‘Soul’ review performance. We were all dancing in our seats and singing to Aretha, Diana, Marvin, Satchmo and others of an era long. After the show everyone left in a bee-bop frame of mind. Such a delightful and talented song and dance troupe! Why is it, we can’t remember what day it is – but we CAN remember all the lyrics to Old-timey songs like, “Heard it through the Grapevine”, “Ain’t no Mountain High Enough”, and “Soul Man”???
After a nightcap at the theater, we moseyed off to bed to sleep with the rocking of the ship – early day tomorrow… Our tour begins at 6:40AM!!
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