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Days 191-195, 20-24 December 2014, Dublin (& Howth!), Ireland
Today? Christmas Eve and we'll be heading off to Enniscorthy to start our new housesit this afternoon. Last few days? We've been pottering about enjoying the Christmas lights and the buzz and the atmosphere generally. We had a credit voucher with Sandeman's New Europe tours for 20 euros so decided to get out of the big smoke and go to the fishing village of Howth on the peninsula for a day trip last Saturday. We planned a couple of days ahead with the forecast in hand and decided Saturday was definitely the day for it - cold but fine and sunny. (And the forecast was true - Yay!) Also our first experience on the DART - Dublin Area Rapid Transit - a zippy train that got us all the way out of town in 20 minutes. A small group - just us, another couple and the very fit tour guide. Turns out I didn't read the fine print and after the gentle stroll down the waterfront and a look at the seals we ended up hiking cross country and along a cliff top for about 6 hours. Just what our respective cases of man-flu needed. We were huffing and puffing like steam trains as we slogged up mountain sides - turns out the other couple have run a marathon recently. I kid you not - how's that for making our lack of mountain-climbing fitness even more obvious. Gorgeous walks and views and all the rest of it (pictured), but I (and even James nowadays), are from the tribe that will generally only hike to the top of a hill if there's a chance of a meal on the other side. Anyway. Frightfully good for us no doubt. There was in fact a pub at the top of the hill (the Summit Hotel, bien sur) and we did share a serve of fish and chips - so all was not lost. We'd rather been hoping that the cliff walk after lunch would have been a relaxing, short doddle back to town... not so much as it turns out. But at least the hard climbing was over! It was pitch black at 5 pm when the DART got us back to Dublin. Felt like 10 pm. Grabbed a fresh prawn curry on the way to the hotel and collapsed quietly. Pretty much continued the collapsed theme on Sunday and most of Monday - had managed to turn teensy case of lady man-flu into a real bout of stuffed-ness. Much better by yesterday (Tuesday) thankfully and we used our last full day in Dublin for a final cruise about Temple Bar - we got lucky and tripped over the nicest fish & chips in town at Leo Burdock's (since 1913!) - saw some interesting shops and buskers and cruised home to our new hotel. Ahhh - the story of the new hotel... Our previous digs, the Glen Guesthouse discovered we were the only room left of 17 for the night of the 23rd and asked if we'd mind moving to their sister property four doors down.... Um.... Ahhh... Well... Oh - for a free night? OK then. So our last night in Dublin was in a completely new spot. Feeling 100% today and off on our new adventure very soon.
By the by... we read an article a couple of weeks ago that Ireland could be in for a white Christmas. It'll want to pull it's finger out - we've brought "Hardie weather" to town. It was 13 degrees the other night when we nipped out for a curry. Positive heat wave. When we were in France looking a the Dublin weather reports it was between 0 and 4! That might be just around the corner again we think.
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