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Waterford
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.
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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