Celtic Odyssey: The Search for the Holy Grail

Today we decided to go to Howth, a quaint town on the peninsula immediately to the North East of Dublin, about a 30-minute train ride from the city center. Arriving, we were immediately greeted by two small markets. We found some scrumptious nuts – roasted in honey and cinnamon (cashews, macadamia, and hazelnut). After figuring out what everyone wanted to do, some of the group decided to go on a boat ride and Kelsey and I went to do what we though was a three-mile hike. Turned out to be 7 miles. But it was glorious. We went along the border of the peninsula, seeing all the cliffs, saw a lighthouse, then going through some very nice golf courses, the “Bog of Frogs” (like from the song, ‘down in the valley oh”), then supposedly by a castle. We did get lost for a bit after the lighthouse, coming off the trail onto some streets, found this nice man who was the manager of a band that wrote “The boys are back in town”, and he directed us to a somewhat overgrown alternate route back to the path. The weather was variable: nice and sunny, then rainy, then repeat. After walking for what seemed forever, we rounded the last leg hoping to see the castle. Then we arrived back at the start – the train station. Somehow, we managed to miss the castle! How do you do that? LAME! So we headed to the historic Abby’s Tavern because everyone said it had really good food. I wanted the corned beef, but it came with cabbage which I don’t like. Instead, I tried a burger – I must say, the few burgers I’ve had here have been exquisite – much better than burgers in the States, though I don’t know why. Also, their milk, cheese and dairy products in general are much better here. Anyways I digress, the tavern was one of those seat yourself, hail your waiter, nothing is rushed kind of establishments. The only problem was that it took forever for us to get a waiter, then it took forever for our food to come, then it was nearly impossible to get the check and when we finally did (because we got pushy as we’d spent 2 hours in this place now and were nearing the time of the last train back to Dublin) it wasn’t our check. So we just paid and left because we’d literally waited 30 minutes for them to find the check (find the waitress to get our order (instead of asking us) to write it up). I have no idea how they gave us the wrong thing, but we had to leave or we’d miss the train so we just covered the difference. Not the best service so that was a bummer. Nevertheless, Howth is a nice village and is definitely worth visiting.