13th Sept Evening

Ballincollig and Cork Area….

Some confusion in the hotel after check in as Shaun somehow got allocated a rather flash room in their deluxe area and even though they told us that our room was also deluxe it looked rather standard compared to Shaun’s.  The room was baking hot so the only window was flung open and air con turned on, though we could not get the aircon to go below 19 degrees, Shaun could get 17 in his room.

A sign was hastily written by Steve saying NOT to close the window, for the cleaning staff.  Needless to say they ignored this!

We were given two bottles of mineral water by the hotel but we found that during our stay then never replaced them!  The cleaning ladies probably wondered why bottles of water kept dissapearing off their trolleys!

Our room was a bit like this:

Shaun’s:

The hotel was pleasant enough but the menu prices scared us so we resolved to eat out, which in the end did give us some extra variety.  Ballincollig is west of Cork and it takes about 20 – 30 minutes to get into the city centre, but not in the rush hour!!  One evening our return journey to the hotel took over an hour!

For the first night we ate in the Kin Kao Sian street food restaurant.  We also looked at the “Great Wall” restaurant but when we got there we realised they were one and the same.  One half was the Great Wall and the other the street food, we chose the latter.

The meal was pretty good but we were finding out that Irish portions are big so tried to keep things “lean and mean”, though we all had some Saki with the meal.

14th Sept…

We drove into Cork city centre to see what there was to explore/see. Shaun was keen to “do some shops”…..

One of the first places we went to was the English Market.

As we got into Cork near lunch time we found a nice cafe in the market.  The market itself was stunning, mainly all types of food, including one of the best stocked and stunning fish counters we have ever seen!

That was it we were going to move to Ireland!

The meal and phot0’s into the gallery from the cafe/restaurant:

This was the house Steve was set to buy – €375,000 – about £325,000 on that date….

6 bedrooms, 1.8 acres of land, GeoThermal Heating……

Tee Hee…..

After lunch we went walk about and shop visiting.  Shaun was looking for some walking shoes, Manda for some slippers.  Shaun = successful, Manda = not.

Whilst out and about we saw these buskers, playing Streets of London, by Ralph McTell in a sort of wierd Irish way!  They did’nt even change any of the words.  “Have you seen the girl, who walks the streets of London, dirt in her hair and her clothes made of rags” We suppose that “who walks the streets of Cork” does not quite have the same ring to it.:

Also stopped for a Gelato – why not!

We eventually found our way to the Butter Museum, on the north side of the river Lee:

We got there quite late and the guy was about to close up but he let us in for free and another family that arrived just after us.  The place was not hugely interesting, but at least did tell us the history of Irish butter.

So we left Cork about 5pm to return to the hotel and we had booked a table at an Italian restaurant near the hotel for 6:30pm. An hour and 15 minutes later we just made it back to the hotel.  The traffic was nose to tail all the way out of Cork!  But we just made the restaurant.  Ristorante Bacco….

 

The food was OK but the thought was that it was all microwaved instead of being totally fresh.  Steve had Salmon pasta but it was VERY oily….. Manda had Spinach and Riccota Canneloni, Shaun – Lasagna Bolognese, mangled at the edges. Manda had Tiramisu and Shaun chocolate gateau, Steve = no dessert as the only one he was interested in was Panna Cotta, but they did not have any.

It was quite interesting watching a couple who were dining on a table near us as they had a bottle of wine each and then went outside to drink and smoke…

Retired back to the hotel to get ready for the next day…..