A Visit to Waterford

We woke up Friday morning, groggy from being woken up so early. And to make matters worse, the elevators were down. We talked to the guy at the front desk and he got our luggage on a cart and brought it down in the service elevator. He even offered us some coffee and breakfast even though it wasn’t open yet. We took a cab to the train station and took and train back to Dublin and then another to Waterford. Paul and Eleanor picked us up at the train station and we went back to their house for a visit. The house was a beautiful cottage along the hillside with a great view of Waterford across the river. And the gardens were fabulous; they even had a pond with a small waterfall. We had a great dinner of steak, chicken, potatoes, sausage, and salad. It was the best we had eaten all week! After dinner we socialized and walked around a bit through the gardens. A path led down through thick flowers and vegetation and led to a gate to the road leading up to their house. Unfortunately, the last train to Dublin left at 630, so we had to catch that one and then a cab to our last hotel - Dublin Airport Manor. After checking in, we had some pizza and took a shower before bed. It was going to be a long day. I went for a short walk in the morning around a neighborhood across the street to stretch my legs. Then we headed to the airport and had a pretty uneventful flight back. There was no line at all to clear US Customs in Toronto and soon we were back in Raleigh.