On July 25 we left Cork and traveled to the Cobh Heritage Center, the last port of call of the Titanic on April 11, 1912. They have a really good museum there and we spent a good amount of time exploring the museum to learn about the Titanic.
In the mid afternoon we arrived in Kilkenny, a city in Ireland on the banks of the River Nore. One of my favourite ways of exploring cities is to walk around, which is exactly what we did – we took a walking tour with a local guide. The city is quite small, and the tour took us through the small streets and past all the pubs and shops, while our guide kept us entertained with his jokes and stories about the city. Below are a few photos from around the city:
The following morning (July 26) we left Kilkenny and traveled to Dublin – our last location in Ireland. Our first stop was the Guinness Brewery. Guinness is a dark, dry stout that originated in Dublin and has become one of the most successful beer brands worldwide. We visited the Guinness Storehouse, which is located at the St. James’s Gate Brewery. The Storehouse is a tourist attraction and museum, where visitors can learn about the process of making Guinness, can buy Guinness souvenirs and learn about how to pour the perfect pint of Guinness. I enjoyed exploring the museum!
One of the best parts of the visit was attending the Guinness Academy to learn to pour the perfect pint. There are 5 steps in the process.
- Take a cool, dry, Guinness branded glass
- Hold the glass firmly at 45 degrees under the tap
- Pull the handle fully forward towards you. Slowly straighten the glass as it fills. Stop when the glass is 3/4 full
- Leave the surge to settle allowing the creamy head to form. The head should be between 10-15mm high
- Top up the glass by pushing the tap handle away from you. Stop when the head is up to the rim
- Present the perfect pint to the customer with a steady hand, logo facing forward
Later that evening we attended an Irish band and Irish dancing performance. It was really good! I loved the Irish dancing – it is so graceful and takes a lot of skill!
That evening was our last night with the Contiki group. We had spent 17 days with this group, traveling through England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. This was my 5th Contiki tour I’ve done, and my 3rd Contiki tour of the summer, and although I thoroughly enjoyed my time in the UK and Ireland, I can honestly say that I would not recommend this particular Contiki tour for someone who wants to explore these countries. I love Contiki as a travel company, and I have loved all of my tours (including this one), but this tour was different than the others in that I felt like I had so much less time in each place than any other tour and I felt extremely rushed. I found this especially bad in Ireland (England and Scotland did not feel as rushed as Ireland). For example, we would drive all day and arrive in a new city around 5 or 6pm, we may have about an hour to explore the city before dinner, and then the following morning we would leave at 8am for the next location. I like to explore cities and sites so that I can have a good feel for the area, and so I can form an opinion on each place I visit. I did not feel like I could form a solid opinion about most places I visited because I had such limited time in each place. This is why my blog entries may have seemed a bit less thorough than normal. I found it hard to write blog posts about locations I did not have enough time to explore. I think Contiki was trying to squeeze as many places as possible into a short amount of time, and because of this we were unable to gain any real depth into any of the locations. For anyone wanting to visit these countries, I would strongly recommend traveling around without a tour group, maybe renting a car or using trains/buses, so that you can explore the areas at your own leisure.
From Dublin I traveled to London to spend my last 4 days in Europe before returning home.
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