Day 3 - Cobh

3rd August 2016

Today we decided to go to look around a town called Cobh. Cobh (pronounced Cove), is a small harbour town where the Titanic ship last docked before sinking in 1912, and is therefore a main tourist destination.

When we (Danielle, her brother called Oliver and I) set out the weather was quite gloomy, looking like it would rain, so we were hoping that that would not be the case. 

Great Island: where Cobh is located. Below Great Island there is the Cork Habour. In the top left there is Fota Island, where we would be stopping later in the day. 

After driving to Great Island, which is where Cobh is, we stopped at the town and decided to go the playground ;) haha, not really. I was just teasing Danielle about going there.

Danielle taking a picture of Cobh Cathedral from the harbour

A selfie of Danielle and I with the wind dancing through our hair :) 

We then went for a walk to St. Colman's (Cobh) Cathedral, which opened in 1911 after 47 years of building!! The builders must have been soo glad to finally get it finished after 47 years!! 

Cobh Cathedral

View from the Cathedral to Cork Habour and Spike Island (center right), which is a small military island. 

We then went inside, and explored the many nooks and crannies in the cathedral.

Amazing Gothic Revival architecture!!

I love the pattern on the floor!! Danielle and I challenged ourselves to see whether it was all one continuous pattern, and we found that it wasn't. Each section of a pattern loops in one continuos stroke. Amazing!!

Oliver and Danielle, mucking around ;)

Danielle was confused why it was called a cathedral, when there is a church like this in Cork that is only called a church and not a cathedral. So, I did a bit of research:

A cathedral is not necessarily larger than a church, contrary to beliefs. A cathedral is actually a church which houses a bishop, and where the church is run under the authority of a bishop. In terms of denominations, the older Roman Catholics (which the Cobh Cathedral is) and Orthodox have cathedrals, and the newer denominations such as Baptists and Methodists don't have cathedrals. 

An interesting fact is that in the older days in Britain under King Henry VII a town could only be called a town if it had a cathedral in it :) 

By this stage we were getting hungry, so Danielle suggested we go the Titanic museum to eat. 

Old titanic sign. Very idyllic :)

It was a while to walk there, but it was lovely scenery along the way :) 

Walking down from the cathedral on the hill. 

Cobh main street

After refuelling our bodies with energy, we left Cobh for Fota Island. Fota Island is where Ireland's only wildlife park is located, as well as famous gardens and a golf course.

We decided to go to Fota Island to see the famous botanic gardens.

After parking we started off walking ...

Entrance to the Fota gardens

Oliver had to take a small pit stop, so Danielle and I kept walking. 

Awesome fauna we noticed along the way

We soon realised that Oliver wouldn't know how to find us, as there were many turns that you could take where we left him.

So we walked back to where we left him, calling out along the way, but we couldn’t find him. He must have taken the wrong turn ... 

So we went to the main house and gardens (largest area) hoping he would come there, but we couldn't find him there either … 

So, eventually we went back to the car, wrote a note saying we would be at the cafe in the main house drinking tea, and placed the note on the front seat of the car in hopes that he would eventually see it.

This part of the garden was fenced off, and we didn't know why. So, we decided to go through the barrier that was there to keep us out! Luckily, we are both super skinny, so we easily slid through the side of the barrier :) We were thinking there might have been a murder which happened there, or a dangerous animal that they are trying to contain, or ... 

Drinking our lovely tea, hot chocolate and digging in to the cakes :)

After we had bought some tea and cakes from the cafe ... 

and were drinking our drinks and beginning to eat our cakes ...

Oliver walked in! 

So he did eventually go to the car to see our note ;) haha :D 

Oliver took a photo of my apple sponge to show us how to take a good photo of food. This definitely makes it look yummy :)

After Oliver finished off Danielle's hot chocolate, and my large cake, we started our walk again :D

This time, we were all together!

Gate to the "walled garden"

Beautiful rose Danielle held up for me

We were all snapping away with our various cameras at all the awesome flowers and landscape in the gardens. It would have been some sight to see ;) haha

More lovely roses 

Awesome dahlia 

Here is a shot of brother and sister taking the SAME shot!! Who took it first?? ;)  

The pavilion surrounded by amazing coloured fauna

We then arrived home, had some dinner, and decided to head back out again to a pub to listen to some 'trad' (traditional) music. 

Danielle and I drinking our "7UP" with the trad band behind us. A lady just came up to us and asked us what we wanted to drink :D Very welcoming!!

The trad band :)

We met a French student called "Louis" in the pub. It was very hard to hear anything anyone said over the loud music, so I basically just nodded and said "Ohh" and "Ahh" all night ;) 

So after the trad band an Australian singer/songwriter came up and started to play. He was good, but Danielle and I were a bit tired and were really only at the pub to hear trad music, so we decided to leave. 

We had an awesome day today!! 

Now you are up to date,

Laura 

xoxo

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