Howth are You?

Day 29
After a slow morning of blogging and America's Next Top Model I took the DART 20 minutes to the little town of Howth.

I didn't know much about the town, just that it was a cute seaside peninsula and there is an island to check out. I guessed left coming out of the DART station and my guess was correct. After a quick lunch I walked out on the levy. From where I had my lunch it looked like I could walk to the island. The further out I walked it became apparent that this wasn't the case. I looked around for a boat to the island but didn't see one. I was a bit hesitant about going out there anyway. About 5 years ago I got stuck on an island in Oslo for about 4 hours. There wasn't any shelter and it was quite cold when I wasn't walking. Rory told me later that the island is said to be overloaded with rats. I was happy in my decision.

I wandered up to some ruins that are actually in the town and not on the harbor. The first tower looking one turned out to be a museum about the Hurley Burly. It wasn't open and I'm not sure that I would have visited if it was. The ruins of St. Mary's were quite beautiful. There was a little history explanation, but no reason why it was a ruin. I'm assuming it was because of the reformation. The surrounding cemetery appeared to still be active, or people were actively leaving flowers there. The whole thing was an interesting hodgepodge of old and new grave stones. There were some interesting crosses there.

As I wandered back down to the harbor I noticed that everyone had ice cream. I wanted some and managed to find it. I had come for the cliff walk and at first I thought that I had wandered the wrong way because I was surrounded by houses. Soon the houses gave way and the trail became apparent. A lot of it was uphill and a lot of work. Along the way I met two crazy Spanish guys. Not crazy because they were Spanish, but because they were riding bikes on the trail. The trail was a bit hairy and I felt like I had to carefully watch each step I took. The views were worth it and the reward for huffing and puffing my way around.

When I had finished I worked my way down through the town. Along the way I met two really cute and attention seeking donkeys. There was a sign up warning people to not feed them. Apparently someone did and one of the donkey's died because of it. Sad.

I was in luck and found the Dart station just as I was feeling like I couldn't walk any further. In no time I was back at the apartment. We spent the night watching a Kevin Bacon movie and eating hamburgers.