Our final day was a trip from Waterford back to Dublin with a few stops along the way. We didn’t really get to see much of Waterford because we had scheduled excursions the whole time we were there. We quickly walked across the street from the hotel to get some picture of the river Suir and the Viking ship.
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| River Suir |
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| Viking ship in Waterford |
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| River Suir |
We left waterford and stopped at the Emigration memorial quickly. The memorial is in the ancestral town that the Kennedy’s came from and there is also a monument to JFK here. The Emigration monument has an eternal flame that was lit from the flame that burns at the grave of JFK as well.
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| Replica of a ship that was used for immigrants from Ireland to North America |
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| Emigration Monument |
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| Emigration Monument |
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| JFK monument |
Next we stopped at the Avoca weavers to see how hand weaving still happens at this high end fabric and clothing creator. They have become very well known because some famous people like Princess Diana have had clothing made from their trademark brightly colored woven fabrics. We also had a quick lunch here.
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| A master weaver demonstrating how they still do the hand woven fabrics |
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| Fringing Machine |
Next we stopped at another castle where St. Kevin’s monastery and tower were built and where he lived. It’s at a place called Glendalough and it’s a park with a number of lakes. Since it was a beautiful Saturday it was packed but we had a private tour and saw some of the ruins.
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| One of the two types of Deer common to Ireland |
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| Tower at Glendalough |
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| Monastery at Glendalough |
We arrived at our hotel in Dublin where we would stay for the night before heading out to the airport to come back home. We had one final excursion and one final night with our group and our guide Bill and bus driver Norby. We headed over to the Guinness Brewery to see a tour, have a drink in the Gravity Bar high above Dublin, and then to have a buffet dinner.
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| Bill our guide getting our entrance tickets |
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| Conrad by one of the displays |
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| One of the animals that was used in a marketing campaign for Guinness |
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| View from the Gravity Bar in Dublin |
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| Guinness taps in the Gravity Bar where we got a free pint of Guinness.
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We headed back to the hotel for one final night in Ireland and an early wake up call to get to the airport. Some final impressions of our trip – It was sunny and in the 70s every day that we were there, very unusual weather for Ireland. It rained once while we were at dinner and sprinkled on the bus while we were driving once. We were asked more than once to leave the weather there when we left and they would take care of it for us.
We were very surprised at the long days. It stayed light until after 10PM and was light again by 5AM. That wasn’t what we had expected.
The Irish people are very friendly.
They dress a lot like we do, we didn’t find a difference as we had in so many other European countries.
Maybe we will get back to Ireland someday or maybe not, but we loved the time that we had there.
