"I want to get back to my city by the bay"

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

It was a long, long week, and I really needed a break. So while I rented a car to escape last weekend, I decided to try a shorter (cheaper!) bus-fueled trip this weekend, and go to Cobh. 6 bucks is a small price to pay for a day of entertainment, right?

Cobh. If you know how to pronounce it without looking it up, you're better than I am. So many letters in Irish end up meaning absolutely nothing. (It's "Cove" by the way).

It's about a 40 minute bus ride from Cork City, and they leave you right by the big cathedral (St. Coleman's, it's called). Any chance I have to go to church on the weekend means I can brag to my mom, right?

Now, what was weird about this place was a couple of things:

1) there's a huge spire, but you can't find access to it or climb up! It would have an absolutely beautiful view of the bay if you could. Don't these clergy folk know that churches should be here for my amusement?

2) This:

This was outside on gravel...

What is the possible purpose of this? The spigot is better located and used for filling a dog bowl imho.

Anyhow, I had about 2 hours before my ferry to Spike Island, or as it is billed, "Ireland's Alcatraz". Let me comment on that label later and make some "The Rock" comparisons. But what I did have now was time to explore this pretty picturesque town.

By the way, that old lighthouse looking place on the left was a Chinese restaurant somehow.

Decided to have lunch at "The Quays Bar and Grill", gorgeous view with my lunch.

Was I the only person on the patio? Yes. Why? No idea. People are missing out.

Turns out I had quite a bit more time than I thought... so I did some more exploring. For those who don't know, Cobh used to a major port for departing ships from Ireland. Two ships you might have heard of (Lusitania and Titanic) that sank left from here... and there are memorials/museums abound in town.

I passed a lovely place that I avoided because it was all of the decadence of america, and frankly, i was too full for it. But what a concept below!

Old me would have ordered 2 of these.

Instead, I settled for a scone treat and some tea at a nearby cafe.

Even better than the fresh scone with fresh cream was the old lady getting fresh with the young girl behind the counter. The girl proclaimed she could not could her a full irish breakfast because she didn't have a stove anymore. This old lady was not having it. "Just put the tomato in the oven! And some mushrooms!... what's wrong with your stove, did it 'give up the ghost'"? (I didn't really know what that meant). I tried my best not to laugh as I enjoyed my dessert.

Anyhow, after I successfully dodged this encounter, I went back out to the ferry. It's about a 10 minute ferry ride to Spike Island (pronounced "Spoyke Oy-land") from the dock, and man, I'm glad I prebought a ticket because they were sold out the moment I got here. But at the same time, they never checked my ticket once, so... maybe I'm not glad?

FYI, you do have to keep your mask on the entire time on a boat. And there's social distancing. Which could explain why there are way less tickets...

Anyhow, here's the view of town from the island. Pretty nice!

You get 3.5 hours before the ferry back, so you gotta make the most out of it (mine also was the last one of the day... I do really wonder what happens if you miss the boat!). Started with a guided tour of "Irish Alcatraz" to learn a bit about the history. Here's a couple bits:

-Unlike real Alcatraz, where the worst of the worst were held, Spike Island was typically called the "joyriding prison". (At least recently that is, back in the day it was a fort and then an indentured servant waystation.) Anyhow, there was a riot here back in 1985 (when great men were born) and they didn't even really do anything awful. I mean, there was an actual village of civilians on the island, and they didn't mess with them, take them hostage or anything. They came down, looked for boats to get off the island, found none, and just "joyrided" (prolly not a word) a tractor into a couple of the prison gates. Even in the movie "The Rock", honorable marines took like 70 people hostage at real Alcatraz! Irish prisoners here were so polite they let the villagers be peaceably!

Here's a leftover house from that village.

-The views from this place were pretty spectacular. Here's a bunch.

After looking around at the prison, some artillery stationed here, I went hiking around the island. Which is pretty heavily encouraged. And let's face it, you've got a lot of time to kill. But I must have hiked at least 3 miles today all things considered, so I'm not mad at it.

I got back to Cobh at about 6, and the last bus back to Cork was at 7:45. Is that enough time for dinner? I thought so, but fate said "no", as a steakhouse said they were fully booked (my sweatpants and sweatshirt getup probably didn't help things). So instead, I decided to check out the "Titanic Memorial Garden" before I came back.

Don't do this. If you're ever here. This is the extent of what that is.

Color me disappointed.

I don't even like gardens, but if I can produce what you did in a day's work, it friggin sucks. And I walked like a mile out of the way to check this out.

Anyhow, for the rest of the day I just took the bus back to Cork and got Nando's. but I promise you some cool pics in the rando section below!

Random Things:

These monks should be way more pissed...

-This is a random creepy thought, but FYI, something every restaurant here asks for is your name and phone number for contact tracing....easy way to start a conversation with a lady about getting her phone number? (I told you it was creepy)

you know, the burned out cells look way older than 1985

Man of the year here, in my opinion

...how Irish was JFK really??? He's American, cmon.

Few random facts for you:

(Queenstown was the original name of Cobh btw)

Moment of Zen: