Waterford
Trip Start
Jun 12, 2007
1
31
220
Trip End
Ongoing
Waterford,
Ireland
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Waterford is a beautiful city from the distance but not that great when in the city itself. I was so happy that we stayed about 10 minutes outside the city at a complete oasis. We decided to stay at the Waterford Castle; www.WaterfordCastle.com. This hotel is an actual castle that dates back to over 400 years ago. It's on it's own island in which you need to take a private ferry to get to it. The grounds and gardens were spectacular! In case you were wondering, this is where Waterford Crystal is made and so we did the touristy thing and joined the tour buses to visit the factory. It was a lot better than expected. I enjoyed seeing the melted crystal come out of the fire and turn into it's final shape. The people would have a long stick with the melted crystal on the end and place it into a mold. Then they would blow through the stick to help it get it's shape in the mold. All the cuts that are typical of a waterford crystal piece are done by hand. Some of these jobs take 5 years of training. 1/3 of the finished pieces don't pass inspection and get melted back down to reuse. While there, we also had a chance to see the ball that is dropped from times square.
