Howth & Wicklow Mountains

For our first full day in the Republic, we were recharged and ready to explore this European capital we had at our fingertips. The weather was abnormally beautiful for gloomy Ireland; we had some of the bluest skies I've ever seen. We started off by traversing around an old fishing village called Howth, which has a population of about 8 thousand. We set out on foot, and mischeifly followed random staircases and whatnot until we found a local treasure; The Big Blue cafe. This outdoor restaurant had a beautiful view from a hilltop, overlooking the harbor and stone remains from an old church. The other customers were clearly local residents, waiting for their children to walk home from school, and greeting nearly everyone who walked down the street by their first name. This is when I began to realize how friendly and happy Irish people are...

I devoured my Atlantic seafood chowder, and spent a little while walking around the shore. After this we hopped into our car and drove south of Dublin into the Wicklow Mountains. All we really had to go by was a simplistic map of the entire country, which made our journeys a little difficult, but definately more fun and unpredictable. We finally saw the natural landscapes after escaping the city, and with that weather,  was just stunning; photographs do no justice to what we saw. Another thing that pictures and video cannot capture is the awesome smell; the smell of peat, or turf as they call it. Since forests and trees arent really abundant in Ireland (mostly open fields), I realized that was why they burned the turf, and not firewood. Which also explained to me why every dwelling was contructed and detailed mostly in stone or brick, leaving only the doors to be made of wood.

We explored the mountains and hills on windy little backroads and got confused at every crossroad which contained a hundred incomprehensible signs. It was great! On the way back out of the mountains, as we were headed towards the village of Enniskerry, Sean spotted 2 hitchkikers and without hesitation picked em up. They turned out to be an Italian couple from Milan who went hiking and misjudged the distance on their map. We exchanged a very interesting conversation and brought them back to the village, where Sean and I went antique shopping before taking off for Dublin again.

It was a long night, we started off by trying "fast food." I learned my lesson--again--not to eat Pizza  outside of the tri-state area! The Irish have a thing for Hawaiian pizza for some reason; which is geographically strange to me, but the pizza is just NOT pizza...lack of herbs, sauce, and quality cheese and dough. Nothing compares to New York and New Haven pizza, sorry. I've hated everything from Vermont, to Florida, to California. Now Ireland. The only new place I've vowed to ever try pizza is in  Italy...maybe. After that mini-disaster, we went back to Quays and drank them dry of Bailey's Irish Cream. There was a local guitarist who had the upstairs jammin, and after that we made our way through the crowded downstairs and rocked out to...yes, George Harrison singles. Never in my life do I expect to encounter a DJ who plays the 1987 hit "Got My Mind Set on You" in America. Sean and I, being the big dorky Beatles fans that we are, devoured every note of the song. We took a fun little walk up the river, which at that hour, was surprisingly bright, lively, and full of young kids, and rode the Nitelink back into Reheny and passed out after a glorious day!

 

   

Comments

[Sean]

Sittin in the backseat of my car!

[Sean]

Howth, getting lost in the mountains, and that night in temple bar was suuuuuuuuuuuuch a good time!!! I think this was definately one of my favorite days of our trip.