
Today’s picks of Waterford and Kilkenny favorites:




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Time to start heading back to our ship, Royal Caribbean’s Brilliance of the Seas, but first our tour brings us to the town of Waterford. Let’s start with Reginald’s Tower, a 54-foot/16-meter stone tower most likely constructed in the mid- to late-13th century:
Around the corner from Reginald’s Tower, on Bailey’s New Street, stand the ruins of Greyfriars Abbey, also known as French Church (and sometimes called Blackfriars Abbey as if that wasn’t confusing enough).



But that’s not even the coolest thing at this site. See that carved wood in the left photo above? Let’s hone in on that object. This is the longest Viking Sword in the world — the Dragon Slayer Sword:
Okay, the lighting wasn’t exactly conducive to an all-encompassing shot, and the area was so small that composition was lacking. I get it. So, that being said, let’s take a closer look at different sections of this carving:



And just around the corner from all that was this neat door at Aherlow House on the corner of Bailey’s New Street and Greyfriars:
In front of Aherlow House is this statue of Franciscan friar and Irish historian Luke Wadding:
And finally for today I shall leave you with this image I took inside the Mayor’s Treasury Exhibit of the Waterford Medieval Museum:
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Today we move inside Kilkenny Castle. I hope you enjoy the show, beginning with the State Dining Room:
And I’ll bet you wish you had a Library such as this one:



But the most impressive room by far at Kilkenny Castle is the Picture Gallery Wing. This massive wing was constructed in the 19th century:
You can see from the photograph above that the gallery takes up the entire upper floor of the wing. Natural light is brought into the gallery via a series of skylights that runs the complete length along the ridgeline of the roof. But the grandeur of this gallery includes a surprise, also along the ceiling. That would be the hand-painted beamed ceiling:
And then there is, of course, the exquisite artwork of the collection:
I shall leave you today with this final image of this statue just beyond the westside entrance to the castle:
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