(Ireland trip) Cork

The final post about the Ireland trip (I think)!

Hey, I just noticed: I'm already writing the last post about the Ireland trip - only two weeks after returning from Ireland! That's really good in comparison to some of the blog posts about my semester in Maynooth (I think I published the post about the last week in Maynooth in March xD).

So the last stop of our little tour was Cork. According to Wikipedia, it is the second largest city of the Republic of Ireland, and, with a population of around 120000, the only place that has more than 100000 inhabitants, except for Dublin, of course (Dublin city has ca. 530000). Of course, Cork is still small in comparison to Mannheim (ca. 300000), for example. But this is Ireland, you need to remember: in this country, the cows outnumber the people!

Anyway, I already wrote about our stay in Cork in the overview post, but I still have pictures to post. Of architecture and stuff like that this time, not food. Well, almost ...

So we started with checking out Cork by night. My opinion is that Cork is really cool in the dark. But I also like Dublin in the dark. So maybe I just like taking pictures at night after I found out at some point that the night mode of my camera isn't too shitty ...

The river should be the River Lee (I guess?).

Cork city centre / shopping street / another Dublin-lookalike.

I just thought it was cool. :-D

Free WiFi Rubbish - that's so Ireland.

After I had taken enough pictures, we went to a pub. I already explained it, I think: that's the thing to do in Cork, even more than in Ireland in general. The pub we ended up in was in Marlboro Street. Ans the interior was really cool. I didn't want to look even more touristy than I did anyway, so there are no pictures of the whole of the furniture and decoration of the pub. But there was a candle in an empty bottle on each table, which was really cool and atmospheric! The music, however, wasn't so atmospheric - although there was a DJ ...

A picture from the way back that I want to call your attention on:

Just in case you don't know the word: cunt = douchebag, moron, jerk, ...

And now, the pictures of the next day:

Worth a visit, according to Lonely Planet: St. Finbarre's Cathedral.

Quite a big church ...

.. but only sneaky pictures from the inside ...

... because there was an entrance fee.

Holy Trinity Church: another big church ...

... for which you didn't have to pay, obviously.

Interesting spring decoration next to the altar.

A window and the organ (somehow, I always take pics of organs).

This poster is for sure very successful ...

A park ...

... with a strange statue.

But we didn't go there for the statue anyway. Cupcakes! :-D

However, the park was kind of nice.

I especially liked this lantern ...

... and the fountain.

A fake tree.

A narrow lane.

Trinity Presbyterian Church (closed on that day).

St. Patrick's Catholic Church (also closed).

But at least you could see the purple doors!

Since for some reason - the Bank Holiday probably - most churches were closed, we were done with the sightseeing earlier than expected. We were even able to do some shopping at Carroll's (the souvenir shop) inbetween. After not being able to enter the last two churches, we didn't really feel like doing anything else than getting something to eat, going to the train station, and lazying around waiting for our train back to Dublin. I guess, we were all "slightly" exhausted after this event-packed weekend.

(Ireland trip) Killarney National Park

Yeah, so this is the post about what we did after a terrible night in as hostel. I mean, except for getting up at 8 a.m. and probably making the party people hate us. But well, revenge is sweet, we didn't exactly get a lot of sleep because of their returning ... And unlike them, we made it for the free breakfast. They were still in bed or had just gotten up when we returned from breakfast and packed our belongings.
It took us a bit of time to make it to the National Park. That's because the name "Killarney National Park" doesn't refer to the national park being directly in Killarney town centre, but "beside the town", Wikipedia says. That basically means: follow a long, long road out of the town (basically like Moyglare Road in Maynooth - including the annoying field! ^^), make a short stop at a wishing well in between, in which you throw a coin to make sure that you'll ever arrive at the national park, and then continue following the road. Eventually, you will realise that the environment is getting greener:

And then, finally, there will be a sign to tell you what you were waiting for all the time:

Strange angle - because I wanted to have a picture without the three girls taking selfies right next to the sign ...

Actually, I don't really have a lot to write about Killarney National Park. I already inserted the link to its Wikipedia article somewhere above. Let me just add to this: Killarney National Park is a vast green space, it's even incredibly green in terms of Irish landscape. It is simply amazing and beautiful! <3
Well, and there are no toilets, obviously, because it's nature. So if you don't like peeing in the middle of this green beauty, you have to go back to civilisation (i. e. to Ross Castle) at some point.
But before that point, I was able to take a lot of pictures of Ross Castle, the Purple Mountain, the Lakes of Killarney, and of the green forest, of course! Enjoy the beauty!

Ross Castle.

The duck was a bit too fast for my camera ...

... but the swan was slow.

Brace yourselves: I took quite a few pictures of the mountain and the lakes!

Following the path ...

... into the woods! (Somebody was singing this all the time :-D)

Annoying dog that always wanted to poke its nose into my bag ...

Mystical atmosphere.

Turquoise-coloured water (due to chemical reactions with copper, I think).

So much green!

Oh, cute baby ducks! :-)

Congratulations, you reached the end of this monstrous post. I'm sorry for posting this enormous number of pictures, but I just had to share this incredible beauty of the earth!