Everyone who comes to Ireland wants to see Irish Dancing, which probably became really famous after Riverdance performed on Eurovision in 1994. That’s why my friends who visited us in July asked us for taking them to see Irish Dance. So we carried out a big online search to see which different places are offering Irish Dance evenings and which of them are not so awfully touristic and expensive. As the Church is in our neighbourhood and despite being a real touristic place is still worth to see, we suggested them two options – the Church and the Parliament Hotel and they picked both of them 🙂
So on a nice warm summer evening, when our friends had just come from a Viking Splash Tour, which they loved a lot, and we had just arrived from our Cork visit, we ended up at the Church and enjoyed some good Irish dancing with a nice dinner, just like any other tourists, and as the other tourists, I also made a video and uploaded it on my Facebook page, where the Curch had also liked it.
I have been visiting the places around Cork for three years already, but still haven’t had an opportunity to see the town, if not to consider the railway station, where I have been for some times. This year I had a straight wish to visit Cork as well and it matched our plans, and now I can say, that I have been to Cork as well.
We left in the morning and not on an ordinary morning, but on a shiny warm and perfect summer morning, which is not so common here in Ireland. This day was a real summer day to wear your summer dress and flip-flops and enjoy the hustle and bustle of Cork.
River Lee divides the town into two parts
As almost all the towns here, Cork is also located on the banks of a river, the river Lee, which flows through the town and divides it into two parts. At first, we had a small walk in the shopping streets and then headed to the English Market, which is a roofed food market where the trading have taken place since 1788. Nowadays you can find more goods than food from there and it’s also possible to have a lunch on the balcony, inside the market. The most impressive for me were the big seafood stalls with all this fresh fish and seafood. For lunch, we had sandwiches again and the more I eat them, the more I start to love the way, how you can create your own sandwich of almost everything you fancy.
English Market
Cakes in English Market
A Dress Street
Entrance to English Market
Monkfish – a real beauty
Hake
The big bell tower of the Church of St Anne is called the Four Faced Liar and that’s because all the four clocks are telling the different time ad you can never trust them. We also had a quick look into the church but left the tower to the next time. I am pretty sure that I would like to climb the tower and have that picturesque view over the city but that time I must probably come just with Sean because we two are good climbers, walkers, and explorers, and never get tired of that. But I don’t mind that I always leave things for the next time because then I have something to wait for, and so the next time it will be the tower, the shops, and the harbour – Cork is a seaside town but this time I didn’t have time to see it.
We also passed the Butter Museum and had a look through the door, I am sure that I have never seen a butter museum anywhere else in the world. But I am not surprised because of the Irish dairy products including the butter, are really the best in the world.
Four Faced Liar
Butter Museum
Peeping into the museum
In front of the Cork Opera house
After coming back it was still so warm, that we just sat in the garden and read the books 🙂
To get a sunny day at the seaside is not something that you can take as granted when spending your summer in Ireland. Oh, yes, there is a lot of sunshine, but usually, the sun just goes and comes and you can never be sure how long does this magical moment last and unfortunately it never lasts as long as you wish. But this day started with the blue clear sky and ended the same way so I feel that it’s something that needs to be written down and remembered 🙂
Our plans took us to the Camden Fort Meagher, the next fortress, this time, a Maritime Fortress, situated in Crosshaven, just above the sea. Camden Fort Meagher is a coastal defence fortification, one of the best remaining example of that kind of fortification. It was built to defend the mouth of Cork Harbour and the first fortifications date back to 1500. 65% of all the fort is built underground in the tunnels and chambers, but as the weather was so beautiful, we didn’t spend too much time underground but paid more attention to everything that was on the ground, especially the marvellous views over the Cork Harbour and all these small and bigger boats who were enjoying the nice sailing weather.
This time, I didn’t forget to take my selfie stick and therefore I had a lot of fun to practice how to use it properly. It’s not only good for taking selfies but also for all nice views over the sea and that’s why I have so many photos of myself and the sea 🙂
Of course, there was a band 🙂 it’s almost everywhere where they expect tourists and it gives the day a perfect Irish taste. I know, that I sound like tourist now but I am still not tired of hearing them playing Land Rover over and over. The fort is taken care by the local volunteers who really do care about the history and the buildings and give you a good overview of the place and also chat with pleasure like all the Irish like to do.
After walking around we found a nice cafe above the sea and had a cup of coffee before we went home to cook the dinner. On our way home we stopped also in Crosshaven, where all the local pubs were busy and people were enjoying the weather and being outside with their friends and families. I would really be happy to get more such kind of weathers here because it’s so unbelievably beautiful here, so beautiful, that very often you just forget about the weather. And I have to say, that this summer has really been nice and warm – I can prove it by going through my photos of the last summer where I was wearing a coat on almost all of them 😀
Every year we have made a trip to Crosshaven, which is located near Cork. This year we went by car and came back by train and on our way made a short stop in Cashel, a town, situated in County Tipperary and on our way we passed six different counties of Ireland starting from County Dublin, then to County Kildare, County Laois, County Tipperary, County Limerick and our last stop County Cork.
Cashel is a small town with the main tourist attraction the Rock of Cashel, which is also known as Cashel of the Kings and St Patrick’s Rock. Of course, here it’s not possible to get past St Patrick anywhere and it is said that in the past days it was a mountain, called Devil’s Bit, where the Devil lived and St Patrick banished him from the cave and after that, the mountain landed 30 miles from its original location and became a site of the conversion of the King of Munster.
As everywhere else, where there is a tourist attraction, you can also find a small wool shop selling local handicraft. Here they have been really smart because the sheep were eating just beside the house, so whenever they will run out of wool, they can just step out of the door and gather some more.
Before we went to the fortress we were looking around for a nice place to have lunch and we couldn’t have made a better choice than O’Neill’s Restaurant, which seemed more like a cozy little cafe, run by a family. It looked so appealing from outside and we didn’t get disappointed when entering because it was the perfect little place to have your lunch. It had a bit old looking atmosphere, exactly what you are looking in a small town like Cashel and the food was tasty and the hosts friendly.
I cannot leave out the fact that after our lunch we were given the free vouchers for the Castle tour and were welcomed back any time. The O’Neill’s has also lots of good reviews on Trip Advisor and the Trip Advisor’s sign on the window. We ordered the sandwiches, which is a very popular lunch dish here and in spite of being a real sandwich lover, I really like Irish sandwiches and can suggest them to everyone. I especially like these places where you can pick all the ingredients on your own but I a sure that in every place they follow your wishes and please you with the tastiest sandwich you can imagine. And it’s big enough to share if you are not so very hungry at the moment but just cannot pass the lovely moment at the cafe with your sandwich 🙂
And of course, wherever I go, I am admiring the nice little colourful shops and pubs which have so lovely decorations and therefore look so cute, that you just cannot leave without entering or at least taking a photo.
One part of the Dublin City Gallery is located so near to us that it has taken us three years to visit it. This part is called the High Lane Gallery and when you look the building from outside you can never imagine how big it really is. So I was prepared to go to a small art exhibition, but already in the first room, I faced so famous artists as Monet, Renoir, and Rodan.
We had visited the Dublin National Gallery before, but this one was probably too near to us and as it happens, that these places which are so near, that you can go there any time you want, just come out to be the last ones you really visit. Just because you can go there any time 🙂 It was a nice collection to see, not only because of these famous names but also all the Irish artists that were exposed were good. And I think that we spent a good two hours there walking around and enjoying the paintings. There were also lots of little rooms where they showed the movies, but the building was a bit cold and it wasn’t so comfortable to sit and watch like that.
This was the first time for both of us to make sushi at home but it was also something that we had wanted to try for a long time. At first, we went through several different videos on Youtube and picked out the tips and tricks we loved the most. Then we planned to go to the Asian shop, which is also one of my favourite places here in Dublin but on our way, we couldn’t help but popped into the most favourite place – The Chapters – my favourite bookshop and without any planning bought a nice book about making sushi. After that of course, we went to the Asian shop, bought the sushi mat, some pickled ginger, rice vinegar (which was a totally new thing for me), and the seaweed sheets and came back to start with the best part – making sushi.
We used smoked salmon, fish sticks, shrimps, avocado, cucumber and mango slices, also some cream cheese and of course rice, that was mixed with the rice vinegar which gave the rice the right taste. The most interesting part was the rolling, and it wasn’t as difficult as I thought it could be, actually it was not difficult at all because the mat really helps to keep it all together and as the rice is sticky, it all stays well and tight.
This time, we visited the Cineworld cinema in Parnell Street. This cinema is much newer than the Savoy and has 14 different showing rooms.
Probably till now I was the only one left who had no experiences with 3D movies, but now I have done it. Somehow I have missed it, maybe because we don’t have the 3D cinema in Haapsalu and maybe because I am so used to watch all my movies online, so I must say that even haven’t thought about it. But as this opportunity came, of course, I took it and it was quite interesting. Maybe we were sitting too close to the screen, because sometimes, especially when there were people only, taken very close, it bothered me, but it was quite different with the big nature scenes and so I think it was the right movie to try it. Ok, I am not such a big fan of Tarzan, but somehow this story captured me when I was a child. I think that was my granny who told me about it because we didn’t have that book, or if there was one, it was published during the times of the first Estonian Republic, and that made it much more exciting. Later, of course, I saw the movie with Johnny Weismüller on Finnish TV and read some kind of a book as well. But the thing that I most remember about Tarzan was one old song about the jungle and animals and Tarzan who is guarding over the sleeping jungle and his little son 🙂
The Street performers festival Laya City Spectacular has been taking place in Dublin and Cork for 11 times already and I have been visiting the last three of them. As I always come at the beginning of July, I have spent my first weekend visiting that festival, taking place at Merrion Square park. It is mostly meant for families and children, except my very first time in 2014, when they had also two days full of music – different young musicians from Dublin – who performed inside the park. Now it is mostly for different street performers like acrobats, magicians, jugglers and painters all over the world.
Performer from Australia
Huge tractor for jumping
Paul Morocco and Ole
Stomptown Brass
Nice Statue 🙂
Muumipapa’s Lighthouse
Streetfood from the red bus
MaSamba
This year there was also a big street food festival JustEat going on beside the park. The whole street was covered with a grass carpet and different kind of food was sold from the stalls. There was also a small stage for the musicians, but as it was straight on the street, where people were passing by, it was a bit too loud and the musicians were also not so good as they were at the 2014 festival.
As the weather was really nice, we spent a lot of time there, walking around, watching the performers and listening to the music and got even caught by a photographer who asked if he can take photos of us for the JustEat webpage. So now we have the proof that we really took part at the festival 🙂
Click HERE and see all the pictures taken by the photograph Allen Kiely from Akdigital – Digital Agency photo.video.design.
This year I have a long list of movies which are coming out and which I want to see and “Absolutely Fabulous” was on my list as I have been quite a big fan of Jennifer Saunders (and Dawn French who was a co-producer of that movie). I also had the Savoy Cinema on my list because it’s so near to our home and I still had not had a chance to visit it. As it was playing in Savoy, we went to see the movie and it was funny and as fabulous as the serials had been, still of course not competing with “Vicar of Dibley“, which is my favourite British serial. They could have made a movie out of that as well, I would have been really thankful and the first one to go to see it. Now, of course, it’s too late, because Roger Lloyd Pack, who played Owen, unfortunately, passed away in 2014.
We both are the great fans of “Game of the Thrones” and that’s why we kept ourselves from watching the 6th season because we wanted to watch it together. I was the one who started to read the books first and then, of course, I recommended them and as we both like fantasy books they soon became our favourites. After reading all the five books we started to watch the series too and in spite of some differences between the books and the movies, we still love both of them.
As George Martin couldn’t release the 6th book before the movie, we were really curious to see the 6th season because we didn’t have a clue what was going on. Ok, I have to confess that I knew about Jon Snow and unfortunately I also knew about poor Hodor, but it was really hard to not notice it all in social media, especially that I have trafficked it all to my Facebook 😀
And after all that waiting and torturing ourselves we did all these 10 parts of the 6th season with 3 evenings. Wow, I have to say that this was the best season ever and now we cannot wait the 7th coming out. The good thing is that now I can start to read again all these articles with spoilers for the 6th season and the predictions for the next part which I had to avoid for some months because I didn’t want to spoil the whole fun of watching it in Dublin together. Here are some of the best actors of “Game of the Thrones“.
Here are the Top 7 Game of Thrones Season 7 Predictions, so let’s wait and see 🙂
I cannot leave out the fact that after our lunch we were given the free vouchers for the Castle tour and were welcomed back any time. The 
Dublin Accent 