Waterford & It's Amazing Crystal !

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After a long week of University work and Corey working hard at his new job we decided it would be nice to head out of Cork for Saturday the 15th October. We hopped on the bus at 8.30 in the morning to Waterford after a quick stop at a coffee shop for some breakfast and some caffeine to wake us up. Once we arrived in Waterford (after the 2.5 hour bus trip) we ran through the rain to Waterford Crystal! We arrived just in time for the 11 o'clock tour. It was quiet exciting to see behind in the factory how they made these amazing crystal objects! The tour guide showed us each of the steps they used from heating the crystal glass to blowing the crystal to cutting and the crazy designs to how they clean up the crystal to make it sparkle! After the 1 hour tour we thought it would be nice to walk around town. We saw the main shopping street, stopping in the majority of shops - which really annoyed Corey hehe! We walked a few of the back streets admiring and taking in one of Ireland's oldest cities where we came across a small Arts and craft shop. Inside the shop/ workshop we met some really lovely guys who used to work at Waterford Crystal and after being sacked since they shut down the factory (which is now back up and running) they decided to open up their own workshop whee they did glass blowing! They let Corey have a go at the glass blowing!!! He was doing really well until he forgot to keep turning the pole and the glass got ruined - but i have a big feeling we will be trying this again when we get home!!

We continued on our journey through the streets of Waterford when we came to Waterford Harbour (which wasnt very pleasant looking due to the rain and miserable day) but we saw Reginalds Tower which was opposite the harbour. Reginald's Tower is the oldest urban civic building in Ireland, and the oldest monument to retain its Viking name. It had undertaken a few changes from wood to stone and has alot of history! After the climb up the tower and a short 10 minute video of the history of Waterford we decided to head back to the bus and head home after a wonderful enjoyable day.

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Comments

[June Wade]

Wow
Good on yer both hope you are both having a ball which it looks like you's are good on you's for an interesting blog I really enjoyed your journey so far The waterford factory is a wow factor looks good