Cork

 Our trip today was to Cork around 20kms from here. Arrived and parked the Sportage in the first carpark we came to in the central area but at €4.50 per hour or part thereof made a mental note to self that if the opportunity arises should move it somewhere else.

Cork isn’t the tidiest city or town that we have been to nor is it the prettiest.

Found the English Market, which is what we would call a typical French or Italian market, and strolled through it admiring the breads, cheeses, meats, vegetables etc. but with wallet firmly tucked away in the pocket.

Then it was onto the Tourist Information Centre to see what was on offer & found that there was very little  - a historical area and the Marina Market and as the market required use of the car it was just the excuse needed to get the car out of the car park so returned and paid the equivalent of $NZD17.80 for an hour and  a quarter parking and drove to the market.

The market is in a very industrial area (no marina in sight) and consisted of numerous food stalls set out in a very large warehouse. As it was now lunchtime we each chose a stuffed potato and took out another mortgage on the house to pay for them ($NZD69.50).

What we have noticed is that food and coffee is roughly the same cost in each country but set in the different currency e.g a coffee here €4.50 in NZD $4.50, a pub meal here €20, a food court meal in NZ $20.

After lunch we returned to the central area and reparked the car, this time in a more economical parking building, $NZD16 for 3 hours, and strolled to the historical area and found the site of the old Butter Exchange where firkins of butter were traded in the building now named The Firkin Crane, crane because the firkins were loaded by crane, with a firkin being the equivalent of 1/4 of a barrel or between 25-32kg

The exchange in its day was the largest butter market in the world.

There being nothing more to see we returned down to the city passing a church which was more like a Roman theatre or similar and started the drive home.

We continue to be blessed with hot weather and hope it continues for a couple more weeks.

Tomorrow we move out of Midleton and travel further west stopping at Blarney Castle en route.