So from the loop we continued on driving towards Cork, stopping in Killarney, we visited some old estate there I forget the name of lol, not worth it.
quick lunch and quick bathroom breaks in between at some small towns we passed through, we got to Cork around 4pm, if you were to drive directly from Dingle to Cork I wouldn't think it would take more than 3 hours, however, again some of the connecting roads are very small as well and this obviously causes you to slow right down.
Cork is awesome, and a great home baser to Visit Cobh and Kinsale, id probably spend minimum 3 night in Cork, you could easily do more just enjoying the city itself, its very laid back with lots of cool spots:
We went to the Greyhound track in Cork, if you ever thought Horse Racing was seedy, this feels seedy AF lol.. This type of thing is obviously dieing and after a few races we had our fill and left, interesting to see however it seemed kinda fucked and the track was run down etc. lol
Cobh, a cool little sea side town and includes the dock where the last passengers bound for the titanic boarded:
Kinsale is just around the corner, approx a 30 minute drive with a small ferry from Cobh, its more crowded with tourists but a very picturesque town, you could probably do a night here if you wanted and fill your time no problem.
From Cork, we then took the train all the way to Belfast through Dublin, in Dublin you have to take a tram to the main station to change trains, the trip takes about 6 hours with the switch. There are very few flights from Cork to elsewhere within Ireland without going to a Heathrow etc. so driving back to Dublin or taking the train seems to be the best option.
Belfast is obviously in "Northern Ireland" and as such uses the Pound instead of the euro. Belfast proved to be maybe the most expensive place of our whole trip (including London..) Im not sure if this is due to the current political situation but prices here were insane.. The pounds exchange rate 1.65+ so 4 of us were going out to a pub or whatever for dinner, and our bill would be like 110 pounds with one or two rounds of drinks ands dinner, that's like $170 fucking dollars for a half ass pub dinner.. it was insane.. honestly almost prohibitively expensive
Belfast, as with Dublin are both pretty dirty, ugly, cities and to me, feel the least like a European city of any I've been to. The titanic museum is truly a world class exhibit and worth the visit. As well, we did a guided tour with a taxi driver of the "troubles" It was fantastic and very informative, we ended up getting a guide who was the number 1 recommended driver on trip advisor and he was awesome
There is still a large wall which divides parts of the city where the division still exists between the loyalist and the people who identify as Irish. As you can see one of the pictures, some of these people who live against the wall have fucking chain link fences over their back yards to deflect bombs and Molotov cocktails tossed over the fence.. Our driver said tensions are actually heating up once again with all the Brexit talk and there are new groups of the "IRA" which don't really have a true agenda but are more like the current day Neo-Nazi's who have an agenda of hate. They recently found a few bombs in Derry, which was the hot bed of the conflict years ago.
An amazing pub, probably the coolest one I've ever been in, the Duke Of York:
And pics from the troubles tour, there are muraled walls like this all over, for both sides
