Speaker 1: 0:02

Welcome to the Z Michelson Travel Podcast, where every journey is a story waiting to be told. I'm your host, z Michelson, and I'm so excited to take you on a ride through the world's most incredible destinations, hidden gems and unforgettable experiences. Whether you're a seasoned traveler or just starting to plan your next getaway, you're in the right place. Each episode, we'll be diving into everything from must-see landmarks to off-the-beaten-path treasures, speaking with locals and travel experts and sharing stories that will inspire your next adventure. So sit back, relax and let's wander the world together, one destination at a time. Are you ready? Let's get started.

Speaker 2: 0:51

Well, welcome to day three of Diana's trip to Ireland. Diana, welcome back, Thank you. And how are we going to celebrate day three in Ireland? Oh my gosh.

Speaker 3: 1:03

Waterford, waterford, crystal, yeah, coe. And then we end our day in Cork. And in Cork, yes, that's a long day it is Okay, so start me out.

Speaker 2: 1:14

We get up in the morning, you're getting breakfast. Everybody's kind of meandering.

Speaker 3: 1:21

Exactly so, I think, when we left off in Kilkenny, correct? Correct, so we get up the next morning, of course, you know, from our hotel and we have an amazing breakfast again and we leave all of our luggage outside. That's something that we do as well. We leave our luggage outside so that our driver can go ahead and take it up and put it into the bus and while we're enjoying a beautiful breakfast, and then after breakfast, we all load up on the motor coach and we were heading to Waterford.

Speaker 2: 1:49

Waterford, very gorgeous crystal. I have some Waterford crystal. I have to admit, yeah, I do too. I do too. Now I have more. Now I have more. So how long did it take here on the bus?

Speaker 3: 2:03

So it was a little bit of a drive. It was probably about an hour. It wasn't too far. An hour, an hour and a half, that's not bad, it's not bad at all. And of course, the scenery along the way, the Irish scenery was beautiful. And our driver guide, who is the same person you know, our driver guide Mickey, he was just so wonderful and he's telling us all these different stories along the way. He's telling us about the fairies, the Irish fairies that they believe in but they don't believe in, you know, and the history of them. So you get so much history and you learn so much along the way because he's just sharing all of these stories with you.

Speaker 2: 2:42

So the driver is actually part of the trip. Absolutely, he becomes one with you guys. You travel with him. He knows everybody by name by now, yeah, and he can tell stories. He's probably from the region.

Speaker 3: 2:56

He is yeah, he's from Ireland. He is from there, so he was born and raised and he knows everything there is to know about everything. Any location that you go to or anything that you're looking for, he can actually help you with as well. So if you get to a certain city and you're looking for something specific, just ask him. He'll be able to help you with that Well that's great.

Speaker 2: 3:14

Yeah, because that's kind of a neat thing to know that the driver is with you all the way and he's able to tell you what's going on and where you're going and kind of give you a little backstory to things, which makes it more fun.

Speaker 3: 3:26

Yes, and mickey is filled with lots of jokes. Lots of jokes, irish jokes or dad jokes, some of them. You know some of our irish, irish dad jokes, right, yeah, he makes the trip fun that's good.

Speaker 2: 3:40

Yeah, so now you got to waterford and everybody kind of gets off the bus.

Speaker 3: 3:43

So we go ahead and we get to waterford and we of course you know we stop of course at the House of Waterford. That's the reason why we stopped there. And the House of Waterford was actually established in 1783 by George and William Penrose and they started manufacturing flint glass in Waterford.

Speaker 2: 4:02

Do you know what flint?

Speaker 3: 4:03

glass is Flint. Glass is a mineral glass. It actually comes from, like Flint, the mineral Flint. Okay, so yeah so it's actually a mineral glass, and then they kind of went from there and they built their legacy off of this little store, this little manufacturing store in Waterford Crystal, and that's kind of how it grew Now. Is it still family owned? It is not. It has changed hands. It is no longer family owned. But when you go in to Waterford Crystal, of course we did a full tour. That was also included in our package.

Speaker 3: 4:35

We did a full tour and it was a walking tour and you had a guide who actually walked you through the entire factory. And you stop along the way and you get to see the different techniques, from the last blowing, the actual glass cutting to pressing of the glass, to the details in some of, for example, the trophies, some of the trophies that are given at golf tournaments, at basketball tournaments and things like that, so you get to see the detail that actually goes into it and you're there live watching these people actually do these things.

Speaker 3: 5:09

It was just a wonderful, wonderful process to watch and to actually experience and see how they do all of this from the heat of the glass all the way through the creation till the very very end, when they sell it.

Speaker 2: 5:23

Yeah, where they sell it.

Speaker 3: 5:24

Exactly. It's just a great, great process and they walk you through that entire thing that's nice.

Speaker 2: 5:30

So you were brought over there. You were able to see the entire way of blowing glass and creating these beautiful crystal pieces, and then, of course, you can go shopping Right Of course.

Speaker 3: 5:41

Where do they dump you?

Speaker 2: 6:05

no-transcript. Exactly, you do Mail service.

Speaker 3: 6:10

Yeah, and they have, which is what I bought when I was there. I bought some whiskey glasses that have a distinctive pattern. That was just done for that area of Waterford, so you can only purchase it there, at that store, and that's what I like, because I won't be able to find that anywhere else you can find.

Speaker 1: 6:31

Waterford crystals everywhere.

Speaker 3: 6:32

But that was unique to the area. And of course they have, you know, different Christmas ornaments every year, and I'm a Christmas ornament girl.

Speaker 1: 6:40

I have to get a Christmas ornament everywhere.

Speaker 3: 6:41

I don't know so of course I had to get a Christmas ornament everywhere I don't know. So of course I had to get my Christmas ornament as well, naturally Before that particular year. Well, that was fun too. They also had jewelry.

Speaker 2: 6:49

Oh wow, jewelry, Jewelry.

Speaker 3: 6:51

Silver I got a silver pottery. You got a pottery, that's not good, I mean, you know. So I mean, as I say, it's a bit of you know one thing, yeah, so that's very nice.

Speaker 2: 7:06

Now, how long did that take you to go through A couple hours?

Speaker 3: 7:09

Oh, okay, because by the time you go through the tour and then they give you some time to shop. Right, and you didn't want to shop. You can actually wander the little area right there where they had some cafes If you want to get a little nosh. You know something to eat they had some cafes and then you get back on the motorcoach Everybody's back on the motorcoach Now. Some of our tours do include, of course, stops in Waterford, where they stay the night, and they have some amazing, amazing, beautiful hotels in Waterford.

Speaker 2: 7:37

So if they want to stay longer, that's something that can be prepared by the travel advisor to say okay, where do you want to go? How long do you want to stay? Yeah, that's nice too.

Speaker 3: 7:46

Yeah, and they can stay right there in Waterford and, as I mentioned, it's a really beautiful town and it's the oldest city in Ireland, the oldest city in. Ireland. The oldest city in Ireland, I wouldn't have thought that, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 8:00

That's interesting In and of itself. So you were there for a couple of hours meandering and looking at how to make crystal and shopping, and now you got on the bus and you're going to the next town called Cove Cove.

Speaker 3: 8:15

Yes, so the heritage of Cove is. It used to be spelled C-O-V. Then it actually became Queenstown and I think a lot of people might know Queenstown from back when all of the immigrants actually left Ireland, ireland, queenstown, where the ships left the shipway. Yeah Well, after Queenstown, after all the immigrants. They decided to change it back to Cove, but it's spelled the Celtic way C-O-B. Yeah, instead of C-O-V it's spelled C-O-B-H. Yeah, h, h correct.

Speaker 2: 8:49

Okay, now, speaking of that, when I was overseas and I was over there, you would see everything in English and you would see everything in Celtic spelling. People were afraid that we wouldn't understand people, but everybody speaks English. Oh, yeah, yeah. So we have to let people know yeah, they do speak English. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, so we have to let people know yeah, they do speak English. Oh yeah, some of them do have a bigger, broken other. Absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah, but you know, you can communicate very easily.

Speaker 3: 9:15

Oh, yeah, the.

Speaker 2: 9:16

Irish are friendly.

Speaker 3: 9:17

They are very friendly people. Very, very friendly, and you don't find a lot of people actually speaking Gaelic.

Speaker 2: 9:43

No, this cold.

Speaker 3: 9:44

So, yeah, it was, we stopped at the Heritage Center. It talks about all about the Queenstown story Because, again, as I mentioned, Queenstown was the name of the pier there. That city where all of these immigrants left. So the story of about 3 million people leaving from the port there, traveling all over the world Virginia, New England, Barbados, Jamaica, Australia. I had no idea they went to Australia and, of course, New York City.

Speaker 1: 10:20

You know where a lot of our.

Speaker 2: 10:22

Irish friends live.

Speaker 3: 10:24

So it tells the stories of these immigrants, and what's really, really nice is that you also are given when you get your ticket, you're giving a person or a family to follow. Oh cool, yeah, so you find out their story of how they left. Now, most people left during the potato famine.

Speaker 2: 10:44

The potato famine. Yeah, the 1800s Exactly.

Speaker 3: 10:47

Exactly, and that's when most people left, because they were just starving, they needed to go find something else. So you get to actually follow the family and see where the family landed.

Speaker 2: 10:58

Oh, where they wound up.

Speaker 3: 10:59

And what ship they went on. How exciting, because there were so many different ships that went out of Queenstown, so you got to experience that family. So as you're walking through the Heritage Center, you're looking for your family or that person.

Speaker 1: 11:14

That's fun.

Speaker 3: 11:15

Yeah, so it's really really a lot of fun and then you get to see and follow. You know what happened to them when they landed where they landed.

Speaker 2: 11:25

That's such a great history lesson for kids too, you know, when they're learning about all the different places, it's kind of nice. It gives them a more interactive way of learning.

Speaker 3: 11:32

Yeah, and of course it, you know, follows a lot of the ships Right, the Australia ships with the prisoners. Most of the prisoners went to Australia.

Speaker 2: 11:40

Right, they went to Australia.

Speaker 3: 11:42

It was a colony, exactly, and they weren't even prisoners. They weren't even prisoners that did something horribly wrong.

Speaker 1: 11:48

They may have sold a loaf of bread, you know, and they were sent to Australia Right.

Speaker 3: 11:52

And then, of course, the telling of the stories of the two most biggest ship disasters of the 20th century, and of course that was the Lusitania. The Lusitania and of course, the most famous.

Speaker 1: 12:05

The.

Speaker 3: 12:05

Titanic. Yeah, so, because that's where those people actually boarded the Titanic actually left from that pier. That was a major port. It was, and there's actually still a piece of the pier right around the corner from the Heritage Center that you can go see. That's still there. Oh wow, they don't use it any longer. It's really old, you know and so, but it's just the history there is really really fabulous and it's nice to see that.

Speaker 2: 12:32

Did you have somebody else talk you through?

Speaker 3: 12:36

Was there a guide in the Heritage Center? No, it is actually a self-tour.

Speaker 2: 12:39

Self-tour.

Speaker 1: 12:39

Yeah so you walk yourself through.

Speaker 3: 12:41

It's a self-paced tour. We were there a couple of hours. We were there a couple of hours and then also at the Heritage Center. You can actually, if you're interested, hire a genealogist for an hour. And they'll follow. They'll go ahead and trace down your history of your own personal heritage.

Speaker 2: 13:00

I didn't have enough time. I wonder if they would do that long distance.

Speaker 3: 13:04

I don't know that they do it long distance because the genealogist is actually there, actually, there, you know, and you just set up the appointment With all the digital that's going on. Maybe you could email, but I do know they had a few computers set there. There were four computers where you can go in and if you had a heritage you can put in the last name and it would give you some of the heritage of that.

Speaker 2: 13:22

That's pretty cool, very cool, very nice. Yeah, so you were wandering around there and it's like a different type of town. It's a sea-bearing town, what?

Speaker 3: 13:32

else did you do there? You know, honestly, I didn't have enough time to do much of anything. I'm so engrossed in the characters that I didn't have enough time. You were following that family and it took me a long time to find them also and they actually ended up. The family I was following was in Venezuela. Oh, wow, yeah, yeah that's odd. So it was very interesting. There really wasn't too much else time-wise for me to follow. It's a very, very small town because it is a port town, so it's a very small town.

Speaker 2: 14:01

So that was several hours there too, a couple hours. So what time. I mean. You went to Waterford first, then you had a drive to Coates, and now where? Now, helen, our wedding is a long journey, so far already.

Speaker 3: 14:13

I know, yeah, I think it was about 3 o'clock at this point and then we went to Cork and we went to Cork that's where we were going to lay our heads in Cork and we stayed at the Vienna Wood. I highly highly recommend this hotel. It is one of our hotels that we book with our tours.

Speaker 3: 14:31

And it was beautiful, beautiful, great location, great place for weddings. The rooms were so nice and quaint. One of the things that I've noticed about a lot of the hotels is the amenities are always different in all of the rooms. I did mention, I think, in one of our sessions.

Speaker 2: 14:49

They all have hair dryers which I was very excited about.

Speaker 3: 14:53

However, some of them they all have also coffee makers, but some of them have, like, an espresso machine, you know, and some of them have just little hot water pots with instant coffee, but this particular one also had an espresso machine. I was very excited about that as well. So you'll notice that the amenities are different in all the hotels.

Speaker 2: 15:12

Now a lot of people do ask me are the hotels air conditioned in the summer? Are they hip heat in the winter? Are they hip-heat in the winter? Things like that.

Speaker 3: 15:21

Both. Yeah they're both AC and also, of course, heat, because Ireland does get a little nippy. So, yes, it was very, very comfortable. I actually. It was so beautiful, I just opened my window, I didn't turn on any.

Speaker 1: 15:37

AC.

Speaker 2: 15:37

It was so beautiful outside in the evening time For me, you know, being a Florida girl, and again you were there in early spring Exactly, so it would be a little chilly and a little warm, but the sun was probably shining on and off, exactly so.

Speaker 3: 15:51

I just opened my window at night and left the windows open and it was beautiful. Yeah, beautiful temperatures.

Speaker 2: 15:57

Yeah, open, and it was beautiful. Yeah, beautiful temperatures, yeah, that's good. So I like to hear that. Now, what else did the Vienna Woods offer to you? We?

Speaker 3: 16:03

had a great dinner At the hotel. At the hotel we had a wonderful, wonderful dinner, wonderful, wonderful. Yeah, it was really really good dinner, and they kind of had a set menu for us and a private dining room for us, because we were a group, you were a crowd, yes. So then we had the owner of the Vienna Woods. He actually came out, introduced himself to everybody.

Speaker 3: 16:24

Yes, which he typically does for all of our groups. And he also showed us he won a competition for an Irish coffee competition, really, it was apparently a national, european competition and he won. And so we stood there, took the time to show us how to make an original Irish coffee, real Irish coffee, a real Irish coffee. How was it? I again not a big whiskey drinker, not a big whiskey drinker, but it was just absolutely amazing. And there is actually a certain way to put the cream on the top right, because you don't want it to seep through the cough right. It has to stand on the cough right, you know. So it was just, it was absolutely wonderful, wonderful. And it was so nice for him to take the time to show us that, you know, and then have a wonderful dinner that evening. And the service was amazing. They had a banquet area, just wonderful.

Speaker 2: 17:20

Now, again, this meal was included in the tour. Yeah, that's great. I mean, people can eat, they can go travel and it's all included. And, naturally, if they want something different, they can call a travel advisor and say, hey, listen, I want to do this, but I don't want to do that. I want to do this, I want to do that. And they can actually create Celtic tours, can create their own personalized tour for them, yep.

Speaker 3: 17:44

Yep, I love that. I love that. It's great.

Speaker 2: 17:46

So now you're telling me all about the hotel. What about CORE? What's?

Speaker 3: 17:49

going on in CORE so unfortunately that evening I did not get to see C. We wanted more information about what we saw the next day. Hang on a minute. Hang on a minute.

Speaker 2: 17:59

It was the end of our day. So did you have a lot of travel advisors running around town? Well, I didn't go hunting them down. After you, have an Irish coffee that makes you nice and mellow, puts you in a nice, relaxed mood. Now Cork is that a big city?

Speaker 3: 18:14

It's not overly big. No, it was actually a very nice, you know, small.

Speaker 2: 18:19

Walkable.

Speaker 3: 18:19

Yeah, walkable. And all of our hotels. We tried to put them city center Right so that you can walk anywhere that you'd like.

Speaker 2: 18:27

So if somebody is like me, I'm up all hours of the night and sometimes, you know, after dinner I just want to take a stroll yeah, so it's a good way of burning off calories and take a stroll and see the sights. Yeah, absolutely, and that's really good. Now, that was a long day. It was a long day Waterford in the morning, cove in the afternoon, and then Cork in the evening. And now you're going to be setting him for day four. I know Day four is coming.

Speaker 2: 18:56

Day four is coming, so now give us a teaser. Where are we on? Day four is coming. Day four is coming, so now give us a teaser. Where are we on day four? So?

Speaker 3: 19:01

on day four we are actually in Cork, of course, so I'll tell you a little bit more about Cork, and then Killarney.

Speaker 2: 19:11

Oh, killarney, killarney, Okay.

Speaker 3: 19:13

So I can't English. You know Exactly.

Speaker 2: 19:15

Killarney. So that's all happening on day four. Yes, they're Irish, you know Exactly. So that's all happening on day four. So now if people are interested in going on a Celtic tour, they can actually contact their travel advisor and say I heard about all these wonderful places in Ireland I want to go see and I heard about it from Celtic Tours, and their travel advisor can contact Celtic Tours and Celtic Tours has a very easy email and they have a very easy website and what's the website?

Speaker 3: 19:40

The website is wwwceltictourscom.

Speaker 2: 19:44

Now can they call their travel advisor and the travel advisor can actually contact Celtic Tours and say I have a client that wants to do this, this, this and this. Yes, and you have people standing by saying, okay, we're ready, we can put them on.

Speaker 3: 19:57

Yes, we actually have somebody who will answer the phone immediately. Oh, phones, people on phones, what is?

Speaker 2: 20:03

that, well, we'll look at going online and they can actually go online themselves, look at the website and see what's out there and then call their travel advisor and say you know, I've seen this and this is what I want. So it makes it very easy, very simple. Yeah, well, diana, I can't wait to hear about day four. Thank you for stopping in today, and I will see you next time Sounds good.

Speaker 3: 20:26

Thanks again for having me.

Speaker 1: 20:29

Well, that's it for today's episode of the Z Michelson Travel Podcast. I hope you enjoyed our journey and found some new inspiration for your next adventure. Enjoyed our journey and found some new inspiration for your next adventure. Remember, the world is full of stories and sometimes all it takes is a plane ticket to start your own adventure. If you loved today's episode, be sure to tune in every week and don't forget to share your favorite travel moments with me on social media. I'd really love to hear about where you're headed to next on social media. I'd really love to hear about where you're headed to next. So, until next time, keep exploring, keep discovering and, as always, keep traveling with your heart wide open. I'm Zee Michelson and I'll see you on the next adventure.