Waterford to Ardmore

June 5, 2025

Today we swore we would get an early start. Accordingly we were downstairs for breakfast at 8 am, a record for us, having slept well in our nice roomy hotel room with a cool view of the river and historic Waterford.

It’s our third breakfast in Ireland and we are identifying the little differences in breakfast food and customs, the differences that make travel so fun. Apparently, based on three entire days of Irish breakfasts, the waitress always asks whether you want tea or coffee and brings it to you, there is no self-serve or hot water out of a spigot or coffee out of a machine. And the tea has been uniformly excellent and always served in a full tea pot, which I love. Dave described it as a comfort feature for me - and he’s right.

Now as a matter of course we are getting black and white pudding and grilled tomatoes on the menu and eggs show up fried, not boiled. And we are now seeing smoked kippers on the menu. So far however, we haven't had the traditional “full Irish’ where they place a big plate of eggs, sausage, pudding, toast on the table and expect you to eat it all. That will be a good modernization of breakfast if we see less of the traditional full Irish. And of course, we are regularly getting soda bread on the table.

We had a ride of 76 km to Ardmore ahead of us so we were out the door by 9:15 am which is early for us. Happily, the first 45 km of the ride was on the Waterford Greenway, a new piece of cycling infrastructure with no traffic.

Some serious investment was put into this beautiful Greenway.

As a result the first 45 km of the ride was a breeze, with no need to worry about Irish traffic coming up close behind you. There were many fun little stops along the way:

The Greenway is a rails-to-trail route, but they've kept about 10km of track and run a narrow gauge train for tourists on it.

At Coach Coffee at 25 km we stopped for coffee and a croissant. This is obviously a very popular stop for cyclists and we saw a number of them on a Thursday morning.

There we talked to Sean, another cyclist who had done a lot of cycling around Ireland. He and his wife did a major Ireland trip where they rode around 60 km per day and did not book ahead for their accommodations. He lived in Waterford but spoke very flatteringly of Cork, where we will be in a couple of days.

Our plans for this day included a second stop for lunch in Dungarvan, an attractive resort-like town that has a famous fish and chip place written up in Food and Wine, called ANDchips. We went to the trouble of finding it and arriving there with anticipation only to learn they were not open for lunch. Not sure how I missed that one. As a result, we ate at the ‘Blue Door’ next door, which is a bit like an Irish local version of a Subway Sandwich Shop. We split a salad and a Fanta and enjoyed a harbor view while eating, although we learned through that experience that Irish dressings are all mayonnaise and cream-based, and there was no oil and vinegar or vinaigrette on offer.

After Dungarvan we were now off the Greenway and suddenly we had to contend with Irish traffic. The route out of Dungarvan was on the N25 (a major highway with 100 kph speed limit) but we are still on the Eurovelo 1 route and there was a very large shoulder; it wasn’t the most pleasant ride but it was okay. After 3 km we peeled off onto a smaller road to ascend the most significant climb of the day. Around that time we started to notice that the signage was in Irish (no English) and we could not interpret at all.

I am sure Dave was wondering where we were off to. There was a definite feeling we were riding into the middle of nowhere - which I guess we were -except that there is a famous hotel out here, the Cliff House Hotel, and we rode up to it after riding through the charming village of Ardmore. Sean was on duty to greet us and he helped Dave park the bikes in the valet-only garage and we checked in and then enjoyed a couple of hours recovering, which involved my job of getting us a drink in the bar and bringing them back to the room. You know you are in a swanky place when the Aperol Spritz is 15.50 euros (I had one at a fancy restaurant in Miranda de Ebro, Spain for 4.50), This was actually a bit more of a challenge than it should have been; the hotel is perched on a cliff (no surprise there) so the rooms and floors are set up in a wacky way and I got lost both leaving and coming back to our room.

It would be a terrible place to stay if you have mobility issues. There is a full set of stairs up to our room, in order to maximize the view, which admittedly is outstanding.

The room is spacious and comfortable, if starting to feel a bit dated.

We were relieved to check in when we did because the weather had deteriorated as predicted; there had been the usual wind but after 3 pm it started raining.

Dinner that evening was in the Hotel’s restaurant, the Ocean Bar and Restaurant. They also have a Michelin starred restaurant but we decided we were not into that. We had an amazing meal of oysters, chicken liver parfait, and we split a black cod main and Irish cheese for dessert. We chatted with the guy at the next table, who was from Phoenix, AZ, but we never found out what he was up to in Ardmore, Ireland.

Dave was very happy we were staying a second night here: originally we were scheduled for only one night but we decided to stay two nights here instead of two nights in Cork.

Today's ride: 75 km (47 miles)
Total: 1,213 km (753 miles)

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