Captain's Log: Day 8 - Cobh

Captain’s Log: Day 8 – Cobh

Today we left Dublin early in the morning and our new tour guide, Joe, had our group drive into the Wicklow Hills outside Dublin. The hills are more mountains than hills since they are approximately 2,000-3,000 feet in height.

We were all packed into a large bus for the short journey into the hills. The bus driver, named Tige, was an amazing driver – he maneuvered that bus around hair-pin turns at 50 mph on a small two-lane highway high up in the mountains. I have come to realize on this trip that American’s drive quite slow and safely compared to these maniac Europeans…

Back to the trip. The hills were simply breathtaking. The scenery was more what one would expect when visiting Ireland. Our group was robbed of seeing the scenery by being essentially dropped into the heart of a very large city. I was really glad we got to experience the beauty of Ireland as well as the modern culture located at its capital.

After scaring sheep at 50 mph, we arrived at St. Kevin’s Monastery nestled in the Wicklow Hills. The monastery was built over 1000 years ago and the old gravestones and buildings are still standing to this day. What is even more amazing is that no mortar, cement, or other binding agent was used to build the structures.

My favorite building was the round tower that stood over 150 feet over the monastery. Joe’s information about the uses of the tower, why the doorway was so high up, and the architecture that has allowed it to survive so long was extremely valuable and made the trip so much more enriching for the group and myself.

We ate lunch at an attached café. My food was delicious (breakfast panini) but Brittany and Abby hated theirs (roast beef with hidden mustard/horseradish sauce).

After lunch it was back onto the bus and through the rest of the Wicklow Hills and then the 3 hour drive to Cobh (pronounced Cove). I slept much of the way once we exited the beautiful scenery because a highway in Ireland is like a highway in the U.S. except the bus is on the other side of the road.

Once we arrived in Cobh, we departed the bus and made our way to our new rooms. The 5 male students had a suite with 5 beds in it. I feel as if this hotel was much higher quality than our Dublin apartments which were basically glorified hostels.

After settling in, we then were greeted by Michael Martin, a Titanic historian, who took us on a walking tour of the Titanic’s last port of call before it departed for North America. Michael really knew his information and some of the information he imparted on us is very contradictory to many of the information we had been led to believe was fact back in the United States. For instance, the photo taken of the last people to board the Titanic was actually a photo taken 12 days later at the same place.

We finally got some dinner after the Titanic tour in the Chinese restaurant attached to the hotel. I got a sparerib appetizer and a chicken lo mien main course. This was pushing my boundaries because my usual choices for Chinese food are between Chicken or Beef and Broccoli. It was delicious though.