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Waterford Crystal and Kilkenny City with Private Chauffeur Tour
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From €1150 per person
This is a private tour built around you - the itinerary is yours to shape, or you can hand it over entirely to your guide. You’ll spend a full day exploring two of Ireland’s most distinctive destinations: the historic city of Waterford, home to Ireland’s world-famous crystal, and Kilkenny, widely considered the most beautiful medieval city in the country.
At the Waterford Crystal showrooms, you can browse a remarkable range of hand-cut crystal - glassware, barware and homeware crafted using techniques that trace back to 1783. It’s a genuinely impressive place to visit, and there’s plenty to take home if something catches your eye.
Kilkenny is a city that rewards time. From the castle to the cobbled lanes, it packs a huge amount of history, craft and atmosphere into a compact, walkable centre. If you’d like a guided tour of the city and castle to get the full story behind what you’re seeing, that can be arranged. Your chauffeur can also make a restaurant reservation in Dublin for the evening if you’d like to round off the day properly.
Waterford Crystal - The showrooms have been here since 1783, producing luxury hand-cut crystal glassware, barware and homeware of remarkable clarity. The collections draw on Irish heritage - quaint villages, historic castles, the green landscapes you’ll be driving through on the way here. Plenty of time to browse and, if you’re so inclined, pick something out for yourself or someone at home. (60 min)
Kilkenny Design Centre - Located directly across from Kilkenny Castle, the Design Centre is one of the best spots in the country to find quality Irish craft work. Browse pieces by local makers - including Castle Arch Pottery, K Kajoux jewellery and Nicholas Mosse pottery - then head upstairs for a meal at the restaurant if you’re ready for a break. (60 min)
The Medieval Mile - Kilkenny is Ireland’s best-preserved medieval city, and the Medieval Mile pulls together 800 years of that history in one walkable stretch. You’ll pass Kilkenny Castle, the Rothe Gardens and St. Canice’s Round Tower - one of only three climbable round towers in Ireland, standing at 30 metres. The award-winning Medieval Mile Museum, housed in the former 13th-century St Mary’s Church, brings the layers of history to life through interactive multimedia displays. (60 min)
Kilkenny City - A 12th-century castle, a buzzing craft scene, traditional pubs, cobbled lanes and hidden alleys - Kilkenny blends small-town charm with real city energy. Known as the Marble City (many of its buildings were constructed using locally-quarried Kilkenny marble), it sits in Ireland’s Ancient East, about 90 minutes south of Dublin. By day there’s medieval architecture at Rothe House and Black Abbey, trad sessions at Smithwick’s, and design at Kilkenny Art Gallery. By night it genuinely comes alive. (60 min)
In Waterford - the crystal showrooms are on the Mall, a few minutes from the Viking Triangle where the city has its oldest bones. If your guide has time to extend the Waterford stop, Reginald’s Tower at the corner of the quay is Ireland’s oldest civic building and part of the Waterford Treasures trio - a genuinely world-class urban heritage trail. For a quintessentially Waterford experience, a blaa from Walsh’s Bakehouse is worth tracking down: a soft, flour-dusted white roll with EU-protected status, baked twice a day and going stale by teatime, which is the correct way of things.
In Kilkenny - because the tour is private and flexible, tell your guide if you want to climb the round tower at St Canice’s Cathedral. It’s 9th-century, about 100 steps to the top, and the view across the Marble City from up there is the best angle on Kilkenny you’ll find. The castle parkland is fifty free acres on the Nore - if the afternoon has good light, a walk through the rose garden after the Design Centre is a better use of time than another gift shop.
For trad music - if your day finishes in Kilkenny rather than driving straight back to Dublin, John Cleere’s pub on Parliament Street has trad sessions on Monday nights and a small theatre out the back. Tynan’s Bridge House on John’s Bridge is a Victorian bar most locals reckon serves the best stout in the city, and the room has barely changed since it opened.
Timing - this tour runs for 8 hours and is fully private, so the pace is yours. Waterford in the morning gives you the Viking Triangle with fewer people in it; Kilkenny in the afternoon when the castle interior and cathedral are at their quietest is a solid order. Your guide will know the local rhythms.