Irish Adventures: Day 6 - "I'll keep my bags packed."

It was our last day in Waterford. It's funny how quickly you can settle into a place, but it had been quite nice to have a steady place to come "home" to every night. But, alas! Our own little castle - overshadowed by the actual castle on the island - was ours no more. So, we packed up our stuff and took our last ferry ride off of the island. Grandma was practically weeping when she realized that. Well, not really. But she did admit that she had gotten used to it and didn't mind. Again, I think it was the perfectly timed naps that helped.

Heading off the island

The boats always parked nearby... in the middle of the river

Awake on the ferry! A rare sight!

We didn't head far from home to start the day. Our first stop was the Waterford Crystal Factory. Waterford Crystal is known worldwide for their high quality crystal (apparently... this coming from a male who is severely in debt from med school... not the expert). It's been around since the 1700s and has a reputation for its hand craftsmanship and attention to detail. However, that meant that its prices were high. And that meant that the economic recession has been rough, and Waterford has shut down its factories.

Cheers!

According to one of the Waterford people, the cost of restarting their gigantic ovens for melting glass is astronomical, and the odds of them actually restarting production are virtually nonexistant. Originally, we were going to do a factory tour, but as you can imagine, that's no longer a possibility. But they still have a large store where they display their items, from relatively simple, to unbelievably elaborate. Since the elaborate is so much more interesting, I'll mention some things. They had a crystal mail box that people could actually use to mail their post cards. They had amazing chandeliers. There were trophies from lots of sporting events (like rugby and tennis and golf). There were crystal statues of eagles and lighthouses and all sorts of other things.

Libby with a large crystal bear

Why make a grandfather clock out of wood?

We ordered this chandellier for Grandma's kitchen

This is what it looks like from below

They custom made this just for Grandma because they knew the Egles were coming

And who said crystal was a girly thing? Football helmets don't have to be plastic, you know

The stuff they had was fancy. I mean fancy-pants level of luxury. Let's play the Price is Right for a moment. If you saw this chandellier for bid, what would be your price (the closest bid without going over will be the winner).

What's your bid? Any guesses? $100? $500? Now, don't forget, this price is before taxes, since if you don't stay in Ireland, you apparently don't have to pay their sales tax. Ready for the answer? You'd better be sitting down, though, or at least have your checkbook out, because you would hate to miss this deal: we can finance this one for you for just 1000 installments of $71.99. that's right, folks. This beauty will cost you right about seventy-two thousand US dollars. Look, but don't touch. You break it, you bought it.

We watched a part of a 30-minute video about the history of the factory and how to make crystal, but we missed the beginning, and we didn't stick around when it started over. We had places to go and things to see. So the chauffeur picked up the passengers again, and we headed west. We were driving coast-to-coast, pretty much, in one day. a lot easier to do in a country like this than back home.

It was already almost lunch time, so before too long, we paused for a moment at a pretty roadside park and had a picnic lunch. It's crazy how no matter what, if you have a picnic lunch with you, you're basically guaranteed in this country to have a gorgeous place to be able to enjoy it if you just drive for 5 minutes somewhere.

Picnic with an outlook over a river

Don't have a spoon for yogurt? No problem if you've got celery!

Not THE prettiest flowers in Ireland, but a small boquet, nonetheless

Along our drive, we were talking to Grandma about her trip so far. She told us she was kind of miserable but she understood that she had to stay at least until our return flight, since we had already paid for it, and all.... Of course that's a lie. she told us about how she was thrilled and loved being there. When asked if she would consider coming back, her response was simple: "I'll keep my bags packed." And who wouldn't want to with such scenic drives? Every drive, it seems, we just see more and more beautiful castles and churches and pastures.

Don't ask the name... just an impressive random castle

Ditto

Our first stop along the way was a place called Muckross (sounds pleasant, doesn't it?). There's a house there, conveniently named the Muckross House. It's a huge estate with a large mansion and gorgeous property with tons of gardens. The gardens were free to tour, but the house wasn't. So, since there were lots of steps and walking for the house tour, AND it cost money, it made us easy to figure out which to spend our time on.

Now, we all know that Grandma is a very, very sweet woman. What we didn't know, is that the bugs think so, too. She was absolutely attacked by these gnat-like bugs from the moment we started walking around the property. I was getting swarmed a bit, too, but not nearly as bad as Grandma. Libby, Grandma, and I decided that we sweet ones needed to take refuge from the attack bugs, and we headed inside to the little cafe they had. Meanwhile, my parents wandered throughout the gardens. It ended up being a ton of fun for us, though, because Grandma told us stories about random things that came up in converation... stories from her childhood that I'd never heard before. Lots of fun. Fun that never would've happened if it weren't for those gnats. A blessing in disguise, I suppose.

This house was a little small for Libby and me, so we didn't put an offer on it

The yard was mediocre, at best

And those darn people were walking around all the time in the gardens

See what I mean?

Eventually my parents returned with boatloads of pretty flower pictures, and it was time to move along. We passed some random castles along the way, and of course, got some obligatory photos.

Incredible view

In case you forgot your umbrella

And we eventually ended up in Dingle. The Dingle Penninsula is on the west coast, just north of the famed Ring of Kerry. However, unlike the Ring of Kerry, it's not overpopulated with tour buses all day every day. It is absolutely gorgeous, though. We checked into our B&B quickly before taking a self-guided driving tour.

The elusive sheep

Stare down

We had been trying our whole trip to get good sheep pictures. Dingle was the money spot, though. Do you know what the population of the Dingle Peninsula is? About 10,000. Do you know what the SHEEP population is? About 500,000. Fifty sheep per person. That's a crazy ratio.

Beautiful hills

More sheep!

Right on the water, of course

How pretty

Winding road + cliff + water = careful driving

There were stone walls everywhere, dividing people's fields

Better view of stone walls

Ancient "beehive" ruins, thought to be ancient graves

Giant crucifix on a hillside

Our van with the Blasket Islands in the background, as well as the western-most tip of mainland Europe

ESCAPE!!!

Island that looks like lying man with hand on belly, according to tour book

Dingle is a very traditional area, in terms of its language. Everyone speaks Gaelic (AKA Irish), and in fact, many Irish people from throughout the country send their children there to learn the language. Many shop signs and street signs are only in Gaelic without English. Go Mall means "Slow."

This is unclaimed land. It's what the land looked like before people moved in. They had to clear all the rocks by hand before they could use the land for farming. And thus, all the stone walls. They had to do something with them.

More sheep

A really old church. This cross used to be a normal porportion, but the ground has gotten higher and higher as more and more people have been buried there. Libby is putting her hand into the "friendship pole" (or something like that). It has a hole in it that people put their thumbs through to make a pact.

The old chuch... note how the door isn't as tall as it once was

A really old tombstone. No writing left visible

Before the driving tour we had gone out to dinner at a restaurant called the South Pole. It was founded by an Irish gentleman named Tom Crean. He had actually been on at least one expedition to Antarctica and the South Pole and then returned to his homeland and founded a restaurant. He was quite a local celebrity. Well, his memory, anyway, as he passed away decades ago.

Fancy burger with Irish beef and pineapple! The seafood chowder was fantastic, too!

The South Pole looks warmer than expected

And what do you do after dinner in Ireland? You go to a pub, of course! This was officially Grandma's first real pub experience. We had eaten in pubs a few times, but it was always early, and we never really had the full deal. This was the real deal. The pub was huge... it had probably about 6 different large rooms in it, but only the front two were really being used. And the reason was that there was live traditional music there. The people were PACKed inside. It was a really good time. the music was great, and the people were fun. There were these middle aged male twins seated near us who started singing along to some song in Gaelic. SO fun!