Waterford

Friday  15^th April
A very leisurely start this morning, after a lovely swim and a spa we headed up for a late breakfast and admired the views of Kinsale from our very swish hotel, The Carton.  Very fancy love.  The hotel had a feel like Freycinet does, so relaxed, we didn’t want to leave really.  After breakfast we went back down into Kinsale for a wander.  Kinsale has narrow winding streets, tiny houses and bobbing fishing boats and yachts which gives it a picture post card feel.  Kinsale is quiet blissful really. The compact centre is full of artsy little shops and lovely restaurants, we could have spent the day wandering around here very easily but of course we had other plans. 
As we wander through the shops I cant help but love all the childrens clothes they are so beautiful,  I do wish that we had grand babies to buy for.  Maybe I don’t, I think we would be needing an extra suitcase if we did as I wouldn’t be able to stop myself.  But window shopping is fun. 
Joy had given me the areas in Cork that she comes from and so I was keen to have a look at Joys jaunts.  We enjoyed driving around looking at these places in Cork, it was lovely actually. 
We then made our way to Waterford.  We went to the Waterford Crystal Visitors Centre, and did the tour.  My goodness I will never complain about the cost of crystal again.  This gave us a good understanding of traditional crystal production and how labour intensive it is.  My goodness there are some wonderful pieces on display in their showroom.  We laughed at what would happen if we were to drop a piece, shit ourselves and then take off like a shot we both thought!!  This tour was really very interesting, we both enjoyed it. 
Today in Dublin there was a massive auction of property.  Some properties sold for 30% under but most up to 55% under what they were valued at 3 years ago.  One property that was valued at 2 million euros 3 years ago went for 500,000 today, what a steal.  This indicates how depressed the market is since the recession.  They expect to have a couple of these autions a year, this was the first. 

Waiting for my dinner to be served a the Waterford Crystal display