This weekend I went back to the Fota House & Arboretum with one of my roommates and we also went to Fota Wildlife Park. Its very accessible from Fota Island Resort Hotel Cork. The Park is nice and spacious with most of animals free to roam and you can watch them very close. Furthermore the weather was very good on the day which made the experience more enjoyable. You can observe Wallabies, several monkeys, tapir, flamingo, bison, zebra, and the ones I really preferred were the ring-tailed lemurs. Each lemur measures approximately 1 metre in length and they are from Madagascar. It is also worth noting that Fota Wildlife Park is a non-profit organisation.
Now I would like to speak about the Blarney Castle. It opens in May from 9.00 a.m. to 6.30 p.m. and for students it is just €10. It was built almost 6 hundred years ago and was originally made of wood. I am really eager to visit and see it for myself. It is said that you can kiss the Stone of Eloquence and never be lost for words, for that you have to go up to the top of one of the Tower. Furthermore it is a superb place for film with different architectural styles and landscapes. I have found an interesting article about the castle and films shoot. The first shoot when a crew filmed a spoof ‘Lord of the Rings’ sketch in the magical Rock Close Gardens, while the second shoot saw them explore the history of the Blarney stone. You can visit the Castle of course but also the poison garden, the Arboretum, the Bog and Irish garden and the Rock Close. Maybe I am hoping I will have the chance to go there this Sunday.
Otherwise I went to different bars in Cork with some friends and I was very happy to discover the HI-B which is a small and some might say typical Irish bar, anyway you should go there and experience it by yourself, as well as the An Bodhran where you can hear some good traditional Irish music. In the first one it seems to me that each costumer knew each other, and people seems to be very Irish. Every Wednesday someone comes to sing and play music in the bar. I really like the ambiance, it is crowded, there is music, lots of people speak and drink, not everyone can have a seat and the bar is full of decoration of all kind – flags, posters, pictures, and the ceiling of the An Bodhran and on the top of the bar is covered with currency notes. The Guinness and the Murphy’s are good, and the Beamish is a speciality from Cork as it is brewed locally. These two bars are recommended by “Le Guide du Routard” which is a famous book in France for travels abroad.
That’s all for this week, I hope you will enjoy.
À bientôt until the next blog.
Marion
