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WATERFORD |
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WATERFORD 's appearance from the river is deceptively grim: the bare
and open stretch of water with its ugly grey wharves and cranes of the
working port holds no suggestion of the lively city that lies beyond its
dull quays. This is the commercial capital of the southeast, and yet it
retains buildings from Viking and Norman times, as well as from the
eighteenth century - all periods of past eminence. The web of narrow
streets that grew up as the focus for commercial activity in the city's
earliest days holds the modern city together in compact dynamism. While
Waterford has had the modern infrastructure of a mercantile, rather than
a rural, centre for decades, the city has developed socially and
economically even within the last ten years, and the large number of
students here has generated an increasingly upbeat social scene.
Waterford is basically a modern European port wrapped around an ancient
Irish city. The historic town can happily be explored in a day or so,
and the nightlife also warrants some sampling. Though a small city by
European standards, it has some excellent bars, a small but growing
number of decent and imaginative places to eat, and the burgeoning youth/rock
scene of an optimistic, albeit small-scale, urban environment. Alongside
the city's modernity, though, there's plenty that's traditional, most
obviously the place of the pub as a focal point of social activity, and
the persistence of music as an integral part of city life.
The City
Waterford is centred on a wedge of Georgiana, between the
eighteenth-century shops and houses of O'Connell and George streets ,
which run behind the modern quays, and the faded splendour of Parnell
Street and The Mall with their fine doorways and fanlights. The city's
prime attraction is Waterford Treasures , which stands on Merchants
Quay, housing an extraordinary collection of Viking and medieval
artefacts. Head east along the quays from here for about half a mile and
you'll pass a clock tower and a turning into Barronstrand Street, which
runs through the city's main shopping area and through a number of
changes of name to John Street, with its great concentration of
fast-food joints and bars. Continue along the quays from the clock tower
and after about half a mile you will reach Reginald's Tower , the most
impressive remaining medieval building in Waterford. The area of tangled
laneways between here and The Mall contains some of the city's finest
juxtapositions of medieval and eighteenth century architecture,
including Christ Church Cathedral , which dates from 1770. The
splendours of that era are remembered too at Waterford Crystal , the
world-famous glass factory about one and a half miles from the city
centre, a trip to which is vigorously promoted throughout the region.
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