Cobh, Ireland

We spent the next morning walking around the town of Cobh (pronounced Cove), our first stop in Ireland and port for the city of Cork, Blarney Castle, the Waterford Crystal Factory, and Kinsale (more about this in the next post). Cobh is known for a few things: it was the last port of call for the ill-fated Titanic on her maiden voyage in 1914, before setting out on the Atlantic. Cobh was also the departure point for many thousands of Irish who fled the country to escape the potato famine in the mid 1800s.

Cobh is a town of tiny houses painted in wonderful bright colors, dominated visually by a ginourmous cathedral on top of a hill. Once again, we marveled at the lavish use of flowers all over town, and began to covet the tall, three-tiered flower boxes for our own garden at home. We spent our morning walking the streets, slowly winding our way up to the cathedral, and were rewarded on top by some lovely views.

My memory of this port will be the texture of all the houses when seen from the ship; row after row of tiny random color chips that seem to get along with each other just fine. Shown here are a few photos from our morning walk; in the next post, we'll take a field trip in the afternoon to Kinsale.