Mike and Krystle's London Adventure!: Two Australians walk into an Irish Bar, and the Barman says . . . . . . .

Our second sojourn of the summer has been another revisit of sorts, bit of a theme here, as we took the opportunity of 1p flights to head back to Ireland, this time to Cork. We actually stayed a little outside of Cork, quite close to Blarney, in a small township called Killeens. Because our flight was so cheap, we had a 6.20am departure, which meant leaving here at 3.00am. And of course being summer, no, no rain, but it was chilly and foggy. We arrived in Cork and had a day to explore.

A bubbling brook in Cork (no the lamp post is not sticking out of the water)

Beautiful sunny morning in Cork looking up the River Lee

After a very nice breakfast at a pub we found, we took a bus tour around the city. Cork is actually a series of marshy islands that have been built over to make the city. Many of the streets run along waterway paths that have been built over and turned into streets. We were keen to have a look at the old goal, and found it very interesting. It was originally a mixed prison and then just for women. It was closed in the early 1920's but today remains as a demonstration of how it used to be. The goal uses lots of wax models and has an audio accompaniment that give you a lot of interesting history and a good idea of what the goal was like.

The main entry to the goal

The goal has turrets like a castle, looks really impressive, a far as goals go

People used to be punished in the goal by walking in a circle until they got dizzy. That'll learn 'em

No it didn't, so they tried this method instead. Here a young Max Mosley experiences his first beating, delightful!

Krystle was tired from being up so early, so found a place to have a quick nap

We also had a look at the butter museum, which was actually more interesting then it sounds, and it is recommended by the financial times. We actually went in their because Cork weather is just like London weather, and it had changed from just about to rain to actually raining, and we didn't feel like getting wet.

Our accommodation was quite isolated, but still very nice (click here). It was also quite close to a hotel which had a nice bar. We found ourselves there on the Friday night and amongst a Football club trivia night. I (correctly) anticipated a large number of Irish questions, and having never finished worse then second in Trivia decided my record was not going to be destroyed by some local knowledge questions. We wouldn't have won, but we wouldn't have come last either. We did enter the raffle though, Krystle's first for an entire year and won a bottle of wine. We later had to pay 20 Euros (20.00 Eur=33.8843 Aud - XE: the world favourite currency site 19.8.08) to check a bag in for our flight home, necessitated by the ludicrous 100ml limit in carry-on luggage. Apparently if you take a bottle of wine on the plane, then ask for a cork screw to open it, the cork screw could be used as a weapon to take over the plane. Still a fun night was had and that's the main thing.

We enjoyed Cork and the surrounding areas, but did find it all quite expensive. A pub lunch with a bottle of wine cost 43 Euros (43.00 Eur=72.8584 Aud - XE: the world favourite currency site 19.8.08), a bottle of wine cost 19.95 Euro (19.95 Eur=33.8097 Aud - XE: the world favourite currency site 19.8.08). We found that we may have found somewhere to eat and drink more expensive then London. We normally pay around 7-10 pounds (about 15-20 dollars) for a pub lunch/dinner wine, so the prices being asked seemed a little high. We had also had a rip-off of a taxi trip. After walking into Blarney in the morning, about a 5 and a half km walk, we got a cab out that cost us 10 Euros (you can do the Maths by now surely). As it cost us 12 Euros to get from Cork it seemed steep. I paid with a 50 though, so I think he was punishing me for that.