Bweeng – Waterford – Kilkenny

Days 32 - Waterford and Kilkenny, Ireland

Monday 15th September, 2025 -Waterford and Kilkenny, Ireland

A travel day to Kilkenny, our stop for the next 2 nights, via Waterford to tour the Waterford Crystal Factory. Weather wasn't too bad, a bit of rain, but lots of clear skies also.

The drive to Waterford from Bweeng via Mallow, Format and Lismore took us just over 2 hours. We had a mixture of roads and very picturesque countryside, and obvious mixed use farms with cropping also happening. We had sections of wooded landscapes, also very pretty. This took us over a magnificent bridge just outside of Waterford, the pleasure for which we paid a 2.3 euro toll!

We had the Waterford Factory set in our GPS, of course it was in the middle of town and no associated car parking - so Tania parked in the Coach / Bus parking bay while Graeme ran in to see if there were any spots available for a factory tour. We had tried to get tickets online but it said there was none available, but now we were in luck and tickets for the 12:20 tour were purchased. Off we set and found a car park close by and arrived back in time for the tour.

You get to see the craftsman working on the various stages of creating the masterpieces of Waterford Crystal. There were designers, glass blowers, glass cutters, glass etchers and sculptors, all very talented and skilled. An apprenticeship for any of these individual skills could take up to 8 years.

After the fascinating factory tour, we did a quick lap of the town before heading back to the car and off to Kilkenny.

We arrived at 14:30, checked into our BnB and walked the city centre only 2 km away. Kilkenny is the most well preserved medieval town in Ireland and we look forward to exploring more tomorrow, our last full day in Ireland.