We left Cobh this morning and headed southwest to the Beara Peninsula.  We passed the Belvelly Castle, a 14th C tower house, on the edge of the River Lee just north of Cobh. Typical Ireland, we seem to pass by castles every few miles!

Our first stop was Sheridans Cheesemongers in Cork. The Cheese Bible that we bought each other a few years ago helped us decide among the multitude of options.  We ended up with some Gouda-style Coolea for Kris and semi-soft Durrus for Dave. It was hard to choose only a few, as the Irish know how to make tasty cheeses! 

We are enjoying Ireland in the Spring. Not only has our weather been fantastic so far, but the roads are lined with the most beautiful flowering plants, hedges and trees. We are driving past a plethora of huge pink rhododendron ‘trees’, wild purple lilac, yellow forsythia and white Hawthorn.

This afternoon we joined the Wild Atlantic Way, the 2500km scenic coastal driving route along the west coast of Ireland. The Way is one of the longest defined coastal routes in the world. 

The ocean views are pretty but the roads tend to be stupidly small. 80km/h on a single lane wide but two directional. The locals think they are all rally car drivers. Dave is quite comfortable driving in most situations but he really enjoyed his wine at dinner.

Coppingers Court Fortified House is a ruined 4-storey house built in 1616. In its heyday, was said to have ‘a chimney for every month, a door for every week and a window for every day of the year’. 

Fortified mansions replaced castles and tower houses in Ireland in the early 17^th C, being more comfortable, warmer and better lit.

The house was badly damaged by fire during an attack during the Irish Rebellion of 1641. 

The Drombeg Stone Circle originally consisted of 17 closely spaced stones; 13 of these remain today.  When excavated in 1958, the cremated remains of an adolescent were found in a pot in the circle’s center.  

In the vicinity, we found remains of two huts and a fulacht fiadh, a burned mound of stones from the Bronze Age used as cooking pits. 

The Baltimore Beacon is a white stone tower above the channel between the mainland and Sherkin Island near the Baltimore harbour entrance.  It is part of a series of lighthouses and beacons around the Irish coast built as a warning system after the Irish Rebellion of 1798. 

The Baltimore Beacon is locally known as ‘Lot’s wife’ after the biblical woman who was turned into a pillar of salt. 

At Glengarriff we started the drive around the Beara Peninsula, which we will complete tomorrow.

We are staying the night in a tiny but so cute glamping pod at Berehaven Lodge.

The ‘kitchenette’ is pretty limited so dinner is microwaved leftover chicken / steak and salad.