Sunday, May 31, 2009

Howth, Ireland

So the first place we went after London was Ireland. We flew into Dublin and stayed there for two nights. On our first full day we just walked around, seeing the sights, browsing in bookstores and tourist shops, relaxing in a park. Then we went to Kilkenny, a smaller town, for a night; we walked around there and went to the castle and took a walk on the grounds (you can see all this stuff in my FB pictures).

On our last full day in Ireland we decided to see the coast, so we took a train out to a peninsula near Dublin where there's a little village called Howth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howth). It was a typical Irish day--cloudy, cool, a little rainy. But that didn't deter us from deciding to hike the cliffs; in fact, we started out intending to walk all the way around.


It was beautiful there, with the sea, two lighthouses, an island not too far away, seals, and of course the cliffs themselves, covered in a yellow-flowered plant (gorse?) and something that might have been heather. To get there we walked uphill through the town, eventually leaving it behind. We walked along the cliff edge, with the ocean, and the seals, far below, and the island always visible in the distance. The paths we took got a little interesting--some very steep, some quite narrow.

We walked for a long time, enjoying it, but when we checked the map we'd brought along and saw that we were less than halfway around (we started by the lighthouse on the top of the map and only made it to the second lighthouse), we decided to turn inland and get back to the train station that way. By then we were pretty cold, and it was raining more, so we were also wet. When we got further inland we stopped at a little store and I got hot chocolate, but it wasn't chocolaty enough, and it kept sloshing out of the cup as we walked, so it didn't really help that much. We kept checking the map to see where we were, and sometimes we really weren't sure. And I was getting pretty tired, since we'd been walking for so long.

That was about where it became a real adventure, meaning it wasn't too fun anymore. But after having to chose somewhat arbitrarily which way to go at a fork in the road, and asking directions at a house, we eventually made it back. Soaked (our outer layers, at least) and freezing, we decided to eat dinner there, and we found a not-too-expensive restaurant where we finally got to sit down somewhere warm and eat good food.

So in the end our adventure turned out well--we got to see a unique part of Ireland, risk our lives on dangerous cliffs, get some good exercise, and, eventually, rest and relax.

2 comments:

  1. What an adventure, you're right! :)

    Still, despite your account of cold and being lost, etc, I envy your memories found there...

    Keep going with the narratives; this is good.

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  2. You remind me of four other adventurers, a bit shorter than you, who set off from the shire one day...

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