Waterford

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I am a couple of days behind in the posting. Our days are pretty full and my normal blog time which is during wine-thirty, has been greatly reduced. Then, when we get back from dinner, we are exhausted. I am going to try to get caught up today. We are currently starting our second day in Belfast.

First, a bit on the Irish weather. It reminds me a lot of Portland, yes because it rains a lot, but more because it can change in a heartbeat. Rain one minute sunny the next. It has been hard to judge if umbrellas are needed or not. Fortunately for us, every day the phone says it is going to rain it typically does it overnight, so we have had very good weather for the most of our trip so far.

Today was not different. It clearly; rained over night but when we woke up it was bright and sunny over the River Lee. We went down to breakfast room which overlooked the river. We both had eggs benedict (if you know me, you know I am very harsh on this dish) it was completely unremarkable, the hollandaise was clearly from a package, the eggs were over cooked, and it was served in a bowl, making it next to impossible to eat. Just had zero flavor. The coffee was good and very strong.

After breakfast we checked out and got back in the car to head for Waterford. Jerry was not looking forward to another day in the car, but I was much more prepared for the other side of the room. We have now learned to only; rely on Goggle Maps to get us in and out of a city, after that, it is all Jerry and his Maps. One more comment on driving, I am a good driver, but when you are on the other side of the room, there are some adjustments. Jerry, who almost never drives on these trips because he is the navigator, is also a horrible back seat driver, great naviagto, but he can stress me out more than the actual driving at times. He is a cross between my dad, who was always telling me what to do when driving and my mom who sat in the back seat making horrible faces and gasping.

In any event, it was a beautiful day, partly sunny. The drive to Waterford was beautiful. The down side of driving is I can’t really appreciate the countryside since I have to, well drive. We drove along some of the Irish coast. It took about 90 minutes, including the supposed short cut suggested by Siri, which now has an Irish accent. The short cut took us down some very narrow country roads. It did get us off the beaten path to see a bit more of the countryside.

Waterford is a very old city, originally established by the Vikings. There is one section of the city called the Viking Triangle. It contains, Reginald Tower (closed today, so not steps up for us), a Viking Museum, and the remains of an ancient church. We only had a couple of hours at most to spend here, since we had to have the car back by 5. It turned out to be just the right of time for us. We only had two tours scheduled, the Waterford Factory, and Bishops Palace across the street.

The highlight of the trip for me so far was the Waterford tour. It was a private tour so it was just the two of us and the guide. It was fascinating watching them turn the molten crystal into the beautiful vases, stemware, etc. Today the were working on vases. We saw all stages of production from glass blowing, yes, each piece is hand blown (at least in this factory), to smoothing, engraving and sculpting. To become a craftsman takes 7 years of training, then your test is to make what the call the apprentice bowl. If you want to be in the sculpting department that takes another three years of training.

The end of the tour of course ends in the shop. Hannah our guide was very nice and really knew her stuff. We even had the opportunity to talk to the various craftsman. In the shop, which you have to wait in line to get into if you don’t have a tour booked, there are so many different pieces available. Jerry had a picture of a bowl his Grandma Ruth gave him, and was able to get much more information on it. Turns out is may actually be a bit older than he thought. I purchased one claret glass in the Lismore pattern to match the very first piece I was ever given by Michelle, my very good and only friend from college I am still in contact with. Fortunately, it is being shipped home, otherwise it would not make it.

Our tour complete and purchases made, we headed across the street to the Bishop’s Palace. This is one of the few remaining Georgian town houses in the city. The Palace is a museum about the city’s history from 1700 to 1790. It also contains several pieces of Waterford crystal and a very impressive silverware collection.

We had 4 different places picked out for lunch, three of them were a bit out of the city center so too far for us, given our timeframe. The Munster, which was our second choice was just two houses down from eh Bishop’s Palace however, it was no longer in business. Which is too bad, as it looked like it would have been pretty good pub food. We ended up eating at the restaurant at the Towel hoet, across the street from Reginald’s Tower, nothing else to say about that.

We ended our time in the Waterford, with a quick walk by of Reginald’s Tower, Viking longboat, The French Church, Christ Church Cathedral. Then it was back to the car and drive back to Dublin.

The drive back was pretty uneventful, until we tried to get gas, then I made wrong turn after wrong turn. We did finally find a gas station and returned the car with 5 minutes to spare.

Dinner that night (yes, I realize I have switched tense more than once in this entry) we had a reservation at Restaurant Six, up by Dublin City Galleries. We canceled because we no longer had our 72-hour Lusa card, and opted to stay closer to the hotel. Same hotel we stayed at earlier. We found a place around the corner from the hotel called the Urban Brewer. The menu on the website looked decent, but it was actually a bit of bait and switch. The main menu was only available in the downstairs portion of the restaurant, which was not open, they didn’t say that on the website. The bar portion, full of tourists and hipsters, was serving Irish Tapa, most of which we couldn’t eat, because of allergy issues or the over use of goat cheese and beets. We did order their version of Potato Bravas (crispy potatoes, that was it and a very mayonnaisy garlic aioli, with no garlic I could detect.) Did have a couple of decent martinis. We ended up back in the hotel restaurant, surprisingly I had a really good lamb shank, good enough to make it dish of the day. I honestly don’t remember what Jerry had, will have to look at the pictures.

So ended our last day in The Republic of Ireland. We are now off to Northern Ireland and Belfast.

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