|
|
||||||
|
Mike's still fighting a cold, and I'm flirting with laryngitis, so we decide to avoid another frigid, wet day and hole up in Mallow, which is certainly a town worth exploring. In addition, we have some business to attend to, i.e., banking, bike repair, shopping, post office visit, castle viewing, etc. It is a wise decision because it rains and hails off and on after noon, just as we predict. I drop my bike off first thing, and we visit the castles, the old one (12th Century) and the "new" one (16th Century). The new one is owned by an American, and it's in beautiful shape. It can be rented out by the week. We
are able to wander the grounds of the old castle with ease; all the floors are gone, but most of the walls remain. The river is on one side of the castle and a dry channel is apparent on another side, apparently once serving as a moat by way of a diversion of the Blackwater River. We buy postcards and stop at a coffee shop. I find a rain coat on sale at Dunnes; the cheap plastic one that I brought did not survive in the Vee Gap gale. The town has one long market street which ends at the railway station. We pick up a schedule, and we decide to take the train to Millstreet tomorrow where we'll then bike about 30 miles through the mountains to Ballingeary. We also reserve a B+B for three nights in Bantry, given that the town will be in the midst of a mussel festival for the coming weekend. In all, the time in Mallow is time well spent. We get vitamin C and zinc tablets to ward off our maladies. There will be plenty of mountains to climb yet, so my brake repair is critical. We return to the B+B, Mike to bathe and nap, me to chat with host Morris and work on my journal and my fax to Marcia, which I will send tomorrow morning. We also do our wash today; Morris very generously allows us to use his Whirlpool, and then we hang the clothes out on a line, another important order of business taken care of today. |
||||||
| Next | ||||||
