Day eight (Sunday June - 3)
Sunday:
Breakfast was at the hotel and I had pancakes and eggs while Riley had the Irish Breakfast. We weren't able to go to Waterford the day before so we went today. It was about an hours drive so we took a few photos along the way. It rained today so we were glad that we were going to a place that was inside. We arrived at Waterford and were able to go straight into a tour. The first part was a "commercial" for all the products that Waterford makes and the pieced was the ball from New York's millenniums drop. They show is all dramatically! LOL!
We then moved on to watching a few guys making pitchers. The next section was bowls. The toured continued on to include the engravers and the master engravers. We also saw the warehouse and all the special items that were created. It was a interesting and enlighting tour.
We had lunch in their cafeteria which was actually pretty good. Afterwards we headed to Rock of Cashel which is about an hours away drive. The rain had let up so blue skies were shining. The Rock of Cashel has a large church that the town restored part of. The Abbot had created quarters next to the main church so this is the part that was restored and is a small museum. The castle itself is slowly being restored so it still does not have a roof or floor. The views from it are amazing! We got plently of photographs and video.
After the tours and roaming around we looked off in the distance and saw another church ruin. Other people before us had seen it too, so we just followed them down a cow pasture and over a small road. Then through ANOTHER cow pasture - stepping around all the cow patties - to arrive at the ruins. We found a plaque that explained that this was Hore Abbey and it was deserted a long time ago. It was just as beautiful as the castle on the Rock so i was surprised it was so discarded. I thought it would be a great project for SCAD or some other school to take over and restore since only the cows are enjoying it right now.
It had been a long day so we headed back to our room at Blarney Castle.