Get FREE email communications from Fodor's Travel, covering must-see travel destinations, expert trip planning advice, and travel inspiration to fuel your passion.
Waterford has better-preserved city walls than anywhere else in Ireland besides Derry. You can spot one of the remaining portions of the city walls along Spring Garden Alley, off Colbeck Street. Initially, the slightly run-down commercial center doesn't look promising. You need to park your car and proceed on foot to discover the city's proudly preserved heritage, in particular the grand 18th-century Georgian buildings that Waterford architect John Roberts (1714–96) built, including the town's Protestant and Catholic cathedrals.
Waterford's compact town center can be visited in a couple of hours. Most visitors consider the Waterford Glass Visitor Centre and the impressive pair of history museums as must-sees in any city tour.
Roofless ruins are all that remain of French Church, a 13th-century Franciscan abbey. The church, also known as Greyfriars, was given to a group of Huguenot refugees (hence the "French") in 1695. A splendid east window remains amid the ruins. The key is available at Reginald's Tower.
Built, as the name implies, by the Vikings in the mid-11th century, this church has one sole extant remnant: its original door, which has been incorporated into the wall of a meeting hall.
