July 14, 2018 - Cork, Ireland

We arrived at Cobh (pronounced Cove but I'll explain why shortly) Ireland at 9:00 am. Cobh is a small town about 1/2 hour from Cork, which is the second largest city in The Replublic of Ireland. Cobh's claim to fame is it was the last port of call for the Titanic before heading off to America.

So the tides have dictated that today was going to be a short day so we had to decide what one thing we wanted to do. The decision was made to head to Blarney Castle and kiss the Blarney Stone. On the way to Blarney, the tour guide explained the spelling of Cobh. Apparently the celtic alphabet has no "V" so the Celts combined the letters "bh" to make that phonetic sound.  So the spelling of Cobh is bhery bhery strange indeed.

So below is the timeline for our tour

1 hour to get from the ship to the Blarney Castle parking lot
10 minute walk to the Blarney Castle
90 minute wait in line to get to the Blarney Stone
15 seconds to be hung upside down kiss the stone and have a photo taken
15 minutes to walk down the stairs to the exit
10 minutes to walk back to the bus
1 hour bus ride back to the ship, arriving just in time to weigh anchor. Damn tides.

Below are some photos of Blarney Castle and our few seconds with the Blarney Stone

Blarney Castle, the stone is at the top of this tower

We start our 90 minute trek to the top

Then up the spiral staircase

Finally made it to the top, only a few more feet to go (about 10 more minutes)

And now for the 15 second finale

Ready

Set

 Go!

And done

And I did it too

Our view from the top. That is the Blarney House in the background

And our view looking down into the Blarney Caslte (the wooden floors having rotted long ago)