My first visitor in Kinsale - Midterm Break

Just in time for midterm break my first visitor - Luisa - arrived in Kinsale.
Luisa arrived on Friday evening. We cooked a delicious meal, enjoyed a pint of Guiness and talked about our plans for the week.

Today, Luisa and I went to Cork. We went on a walking tour of Cork as our guide recommended. We started from the Tourist office on Grand Parade where we got some useful info about Cork and a couple of brochures. Totally in Touri behaviour we made a lot of pictures of everything we saw and mentioned in the guide. This is why the first pictures you can see are from the National Monument, St. Finn Barre´s Cathedral, Holy Trinity Monastery and the South Channel of the River Lee.
The old part of Cork is build on a kind of island, surrounded by the North and South Channel of the River Lee.
Across the river we saw the spires of St. Finn Barre´s Cathedral, where the city began as a monastic school in about 650AD.
From the National Monument we headed up the Grand Parade towards St. Patrick´s Street passing Bishop Lucey Park and the Princess Street Market (English Market). Inside the park, which is the only one in Cork, we saw a fragement of the medieval city wall. After the park we walked through the English or Princess Street Market, an indoor food market where you can buy local specialities like pig heads and drisheen (blood sausage), but also yummi looking cup cakes. Which we didn´t buy, but I always love looking at it. Leaving the market we walked past a couple of stores who sell lovely hodgepodge. Luisa and I got a lot of crafting ideas from there.
After the market we walked along St. Patrick´s Street, the main shopping area of Cork. We didn´t go shopping yet, but enjoyed the Jazz music on the street for a while. As it was the October Bank Holiday weekend the Guiness Cork Jazz Festival took place and there were street performers all over.

From St. Patrick´s Street we walked past the Opera House, crossing the North Channel to head up to the Shandon Steeple. On our way to the steeple, we past the Firkin Crane Center and the Butter Museum. In the 18th century most of Cork´s wealth came from the export of butter. Due to the limited time we didn´t visit the museum. Instead we went on to St. Anne´s Church, whose steeple is known as the Shandon Steeple and well seen throughout most of the inner city.
We looked inside and despite that it wasn´t allowed to take photos Luisa did it anyway ;).
After St. Anne´s, we got a little confused with all those alley´s finding a way out to the next church. I have to say I reached my limit of churches for this months.
Luisa and walked around the Shandon quarter a little longer before heading back down the hill. It was nice and warm in the sun, but as soon as we came in the shadow temperature dropped by 5°C.
We walked back via the North Mall/ North Main Street and that´s were our sightseeing tour ended and the shopping started. Unlike in Germany stores close quite early at 6 or 6.30pm so we didn´t have a lot of time for shopping.
We had to go back to Kinsale anyway, as we were invited to a potluck dinner this evening.

The potluck dinner was fun. We made pizza from a stone oven and met some interesting people from all over the world (Spain, Columbia, the Netherlands, Hungary, Ireland and Bavaria). The Columbian girl Carolina made a delicious Guacamole and Chili con Carne.
After the dinner we planned to enjoy some more Jazz music in Kinsale, but Luisa and are so tired from all the walking that we went home to sleep.