Waterford

The port at Waterford was some way up the river and it took quite some manoeuvring to  ship tied up.   Our tour today was of the town and the crystal works.  Waterford crystal is hand made - blown, shaped and then engraved.

We watched the team that started with a vey hot blob of molten glass and ended with glass ready to decorate, cut or engrave depending upon what was being made. One person blew and shaped a hot blob of glass, which he passed to the two who where adding the stem. Once added, the glass was then taken by a fourth person who picked up the extremely hot product and walked it over to an oven  where he carefully added it to those already in there. Once the days quota is made, the oven is then allowed to cool overnight and the next day the glasses go on to the next step of decorating. 

It was all very unhurried and like a continuous ballet - I am not sure how long each glass would take to make, my guess would be around five minutes at least. 

Back on the coach we were taken on to a hotel just outside of the town - going into the gateway we had a glimpse of our ship in the distance. 

Here we were given a glass of Gaelic coffee, which I found ok at the first sip - probably just tasted the cream!  My impressions of it went rapidly downhill - let's just say it was my first, and last Gaelic coffee. I didn't finish it....

Back on the ship I walked around as I could see the hotel trees from the deck - as the crow flies the hotel and ship are quite near.