Irish Blarney 2022

 We’re staying about an hour from Waterford, so had to go there.  It’s the oldest city in Ireland, founded by the Vikings around 900 AD.  In fact there are still remnants of buildings, and the wall here from Viking days. One of the things to do in Waterford is a tour of the Waterford Crystal factory.  It’s amazing to see how the crystal is made, and now we understand why it costs so much! Our guide led us through the process of how the crystal is made.  From taking the glass from the furnace,  To marking and etching.   It really is incredible how manual and intricate the process is.  We saw some beautiful pieces including this one, a smaller version of which is at the World Trade Center to commemorate 9/11.  Yes, this is all of Waterford crystal. Afterward, we had to find a place to have some lunch, so a shop-owner recommended this place, The Reg, as there was not much else open for lunch. The reason it’s called “The Reg” is because it’s righ...

 We are now finished with half our trip and moved on to our new location in the southeast of Ireland, near Kilkenny.  We passed by Shannon and Limerick.  We were on a motorway for a while and stopped at this motor plaza - kind of like our On Route. Yep, the plaza is named after Obama - I guess he has heritage from this area. We got to Kilkenny and had lunch at McCleere’s Pub.  The back of this pub had a little theatre set up, and in fact the whole town seems to be in the entertainment business. After lunch, we had some time to kill so we went to the Smithwick’s Experience - yes where this beer, and Kilkenny beer, was brewed for hundreds of years.  Here we are in the tour waiting area.  Yes, what can I say - they’re indescribable. They took us back to the time of the monks in the abbey making beer.  This monk was describing the process and then what happened to them. He was a hologram set up in the back of the room.  He talked about Henry VIII comi...

 For our last day here, we decided to go to Galway.  It’s about 1-1/2 hrs away, our route along the south shore of Galway Bay.  When we got there, we found the Hop On Hop Off bus and did that to get a feel of Galway. Out in the bay is a cruise ship.  I don’t know what cruise line it was with, but I think it was anchored out there. Out where these people are standing at the end of this little pier is Black Rock Diving Tower where people can dive into Galway Bay.  Yeah…no.  Not throngs of people doing this, that’s for sure.  This isn’t my photo and the Tower has been refurbished since this photo was taken, but it gives you an idea of what it looks like. So we saw various sights with lots of commentary about them.  We ended up back where we started and looked for a place for lunch.  We stopped at this spot, but they only serve liquid lunch. So we found another down the street,  We stopped at a castle up the road with this archway entrance. ...

 I think we’re still recovering from that long drive day.  We had originally planned to be driving The Ring of Kerry or The Dingle (beautiful peninsulas in the south) but the distance to get there and back plus do justice to the drive just wasn’t within our desires at all.  Unfortunately, we’ll have to pass them up. Instead we spent some time in the morning doing a little shopping.  Then in the afternoon we headed off to a place the owner of the pub we were in the night before (McGann’s) recommended.  It was called the Caherconnell Stone Fort & Sheepdog Demonstration. First this gentleman took us on a tour of the Fort, or Cashel.  It has had archeologists digging for the last 10 years and they have found all kinds of artifacts.  They date the Fort back to the 400s, but occupied for about 1200 years, and they’re still digging in the area.  They bring students from the university in Galway. We’ve seen these walls everywhere around here.  Ou...

 I didn’t do a blog yesterday as we had driven from the north to the southwest.  It took us about 4-1/2 hrs of driving + stops.  We left just before 10 am and arrived in Doolin around 4:30 pm.  It was a lovely drive though, we headed west first toward Londonderry, then turned south southwest, by Donegal, Sligo, and Galway. We don’t have much in the way of pictures.  But here’s one while on the road.  Yes, this is 2 lanes. Our new place in Doolin is called Castleview, and here’s why (from our window). This is Doolin from the drone. After we got settled in our new place, we headed off to find somewhere to eat.  O’Connor’s Pub wasn’t very far, so some of us walked and 1 car drove some.  It was John’s 70th birthday, after all, so we had to celebrate.  There are some cute shops along the way.  This wool shop has a thatched roof, and we saw a few of these here. Here are the 2 70-year old birthday babes.  Sue had hers on Sept 1st and John ...