August 10, 2023 Cobh, Ireland

There was no alarm today since there was no excursion for us. There were about eight tours that left at 8:15 a.m. The all aboard time today is 4:30 p.m.

The ground was wet from the overnight rain. The temperature was 16° C, wind ESE 20 km/hr with a cloudy sky and light fog giving at most three kilometres visibility. There was a 60% chance rain after 3 p.m. predicted although we experienced light rain for about an hour in the late morning and fog getting lower as we climbed the streets of Cobh.

Cobh is the port for Cork, Ireland, the second largest city after Dublin. Cobh is situated on the Great Island in Cork Harbour. Originally in the 18^th century, the village was known as Cove. In 1750 it became a British Naval Base during the 1770 American Revolt and continued into the Napoleonic War 1803 to 1815. The town was renamed Queenstown in 1849 when Queen Victoria and Prince Albert visited. The Queen even did some water colour painting during her stay. But when the Republic of Ireland was formed in 1922 it was renamed to the Gaelic word Cobh which is pronounced cove.

We shared a table at breakfast with Elizabeth, Carol, Judy & Don. Judy and Don are taking the same Historic Lewis tour as Claire in Stornoway. We checked the weather and decided to take jackets because of the wind and fog, but packed our umbrellas.

By 9 a.m. we were off the ship. The train station is right at the dock by the Cobh Heritage Centre and runs every 30 minutes to Cork. The Tourist Information office is by Casement Square in the town centre and was about 800 meters from the ship walking slightly uphill from the pier. We were given a “Visit Cobh” map, which we later determined was missing a few streets. They advised us that most cafes and bars have Wi-Fi and they will give you the password when you buy a drink or food. We walked along West Beach and found Leonardo’s Café where we ordered tea and shared a delicious raisin scone while uploaded the blog.

Leaving the café the fog was about the same, but it was windy. We decided to walk the short distance to the Titanic Memorial Garden. We did not see any signs but using the map took the upper road at a fork, and soon realized that it might not be the right way. There was another fork to another hilly street that we followed until we saw a woman and asked for directions. The garden was down by the water. She took us back to the main road and pointed to the road to take and pointed to the Irish flag that was on the garden property. We had walked about 1.5 km in the wrong direction. The route along the road had two hairpin turns before levelling at the waterfront. There is a large glass memorial which is engraved with the names of the people who embarked onto Titanic from Cobh, the last port before sailing for New York. Normally from the garden you can see across to the islands in the harbour, but the fog obscured them. There were a few garden areas, along the perimeter of the area.

Next we trekked back to East Beach Road to go to St. Colman’s Cathedral. We knew which direction to go but guessed at which of the hillside streets to take to get up to the hill. This time our first guess was correct. The fog had become thicker to about 300 meters visibility and there was a light rain hitting our hoods. The Cathedral is quite imposing, the steeple was almost lot in the fog. The cathedral was started in 1869 with the scaffolding for the steeple not removed until 1915. We took the shortcut through the parking lot that the tourist office woman had mentioned and came to a street, but couldn’t find the name and it didn’t seem like the wide street on the map. We wanted to go to St. Benedict’s Priory and Teahouse and its Bible Garden. We chose a direction and walked for a while but didn’t see any landmarks from a second map that we had googled. We soon realized we were going the wrong the way and turned around to return to the cathedral to see if the fog was high enough to see the steeple. At the traffic lights, there was a pink house that was the first of a row of narrow houses. One of the many street signs near it read “St. Benedict’s Priory”. We had a short 400 meter walk to the priory in the misty fog and strolled its garden. Then we went to its quaint tea house “Oasis Tearoom” where we enjoyed a dry place with tea and freshly baked raisin scones, with butter and jam – all for just eight Euros. Dried off ,we returned to St. Colman’s Cathedral but the fog still clung to the steeple. We took Bishop’s Road down to the Lower Road by the ship and stopped to see the Cobh Museum housed in an old church. Zuiderdam’s fog horn was sounding as we entered the museum. We were less than a five minute walk from the ship and it was hardly visible. The admission was just five Euros for both of us. It had exhibits of the town’s history including a bit about Titanic and a lot about the sinking of the passenger ship, Lusitania, nearby on May 7, 1915 when it was torpedoed by a German U-boat with over 1,000 lives lost. It had left New York seven days before. As we exited the museum, the fog was higher and Zuiderdam was clearly visible. We started to climb Bishop’s Road to see if the cathedral steeple was visible, but as it came in sight, higher up, it still had fog surrounding it. We returned to Casement Square where there is a memorial to the Lusitania sinking. With thinner fog, some of the harbour island were visible. Along the waterfront we passed the former offices of the Cunard Cruise Line. We returned to the ship by 2:30 p.m. along the waterfront, strolling through John. F. Kennedy park, having walked almost ten kilometres including up several hills.

We dropped off our jackets and climbed the eight flight of stairs to Lido to get some ice cream and sit by the window with a view of Cobh.

All aboard time was 4:30 p.m., at 4:35 p.m. there were four tour busses unloading passengers from their eight hour tour. We saw Cee Kaye and Brad climbing the gangway into the ship. When Zuiderdam left Cobh shortly after 5 p.m. she was cruising in a light fog into St. George’s Channel and then into the Irish Sea, on her way to Belfast, Northern Ireland.

We joined Cee Kaye and Brad for dinner and they had great things to say about their excursion. After dinner, the show in the World Stage was Damhsa Irish Dancers from Dublin. In the commentary during the show, their guitar player/MC mentioned that they were told to take their passports for the cruise ship performance. He was excited to know where they were going, but not so much when it just up the coast to Belfast. We usually go to the theatre about 30 minutes before a show and read, but this evening we had to look for seats as the theatre was almost full. Everyone really enjoyed the show of Irish music with Irish dancers.

Total steps 19,030