AFTER spending a few hours in Waterford today we boarded our bus for the two-hour drive to our overnight stop near the village of Mallow in Cork County.
We're spending the night at Longueville House - a 19th-century farm with a stately old home that's been converted to a 20-room hotel - and enjoying the hospitality of the owners who work the land and serve their produce to the guests at mealtime.
Our driver Jim had two options when it came to making the journey from Waterford to Mallow, and elected to follow the more scenic route along the coast and then through a picturesque farming valley so we could see enjoy the view.
This part of Ireland is called the Copper Coast - there used to be a copper mine operating on the top of one of the windswept cliffs - and the ocean vistas were lovely with green paddocks giving way to sheer walls of rock that dropped severely the ocean.
Once we turned inland we meandered through a bucolic valley, with farm houses dotting the landscape and flocks of black-faced sheep and cows grazing on glass that looked like green velvet when viewed from a distance.
- Posted from my iPad