May 14 - Waterford

Today we were off to Waterford and then Glendalough. Waterford is both a town and a company. While Waterford, the company, is in town of Waterford, we were just there to take a tour of the factory.

The tour was very interesting. You first go to a main building where you purchase your ticket, then proceed to a bus. The bus travels all of about 3 blocks or so to the factory. The first station we saw was where two men were making the first parts of a pitcher. The part we saw was them making a handle. One man heated up the glass and placed it on the partially completed vase. It was all done in about a minute or two with proficient skill. I have some photos.

From there we went to see other glass being blown into their first rough shapes. A piece can go through many stages, from the rough glass shape through to it's final product. They have a whole section of people etching the many designs into a variety of items.

The final stage we saw was where they do custom etching. There are some really beautiful pieces in this room, and we got to see someone etch a glass up close and personal.

Waterford also makes many of the trophies for various sporting events. Tiger woods has so many, that they gave him a section all his own. The ones on display are exact duplicates of the originals as they make two copies of each trophy for a "just in case" scenario.

Like any good old tour, it ends at the gift shop (of course). Not surprisingly, this is the most expensive gift shop we've ever been in. Neither of us are very interested in expensive (or inexpensive) nik naks, but we agreed if we saw something we thought we could use, we would buy it. Those who know us know we are into wine, so we were particularly interested in the wine glasses. Waterford has various design patterns, but there are some that are only in Ireland and some that are only available directly at the factory. This appealed to Naomi since it made them somewhat more exclusive and different. We found a pattern that we liked a lot, so we purchased a special set that came in a nice box. We also found out that we could get them engraved for free, so we thought why not. Discussing our options, we decided to keep it simple and just put our last name on it. That way we could hand them down to a family member and it would have special meaning.

Then we had this other great deal, free shipping BUT there was a minimum. Don't you know it we were less then 2 Euro short of the minimum and they wouldn't override it. So it was either buy some small item (nothing for 2 Euro I assure you), or purchase something we want. Well after we couldn't find some small item, we decided to get the matching set of water glasses. The only downside is that they do the hotdog/bun gimmick, the one where they number in each set doesn't match. Well we decided to live with the mismatch in number. We could always go back and get more, as Waterford never discontinues an item. Since the engraving was free, we decided to get those engraved as well. Quite an expensive day, and the day wasn't over yet.

We proceed onto Glendaloch where we were staying for the last two days of our trip. We stayed in a quaint B&B called Tudor Lodge. All the places we stayed had a lot of country charm, except for the Starwood hotels which were very nice, but had a hotel feel. The possible exception was the Westin in Dublin, which seemed to have more charm then the other Startwood properties. All were very nice though.

We checked in, dropped our luggage in the room, and went off to dinner. We saw a couple of place in town, and just picked one. Ironically it was right next to where we were going the next day, but we didn't find that out until the next day. Since this was one of the most reasonably priced places, we decided to have appetizers. I had wings (which Naomi lovingly exclaimed "YOUR HAVING WINGS IN IRELAND!!!"). YES! Well they were the best wings I think I've every had. They were super crispy, not greasy, and a lot of flavor. I liked them so much that I was going to go back there the next night just for the wings, but we ended up with other plans.

After dinner we went back to our B&B. On the way, we stopped by a convenience store for some soft ice cream. Well it wasn't very convenient because they had shut down the machine for the night and it wasn't late at all. Apparently it's an arduous process to shut it down and/or start it up so NO Ice cream. So we proceed onto our B&B. It was still very light out and right near where we were staying is a field where some kids (just barley old enough to walk) playing footbal (aka soccer). We sat on a stone fence, opened a Guiness, and watched the game for awhile. After awhile, we went back to the B&B to watch some TV and call it a night.