Day at the beach (Harbour actually but beach sounds better)
Today we decided that, as the weather was much better than predicted again, we would go and do something with the whole family. This includen opa (granddad) and the dog Lucky. We went for a drive to Howth.
First we parked the car and went for a walk along a cliff path. We had some very nice views from here so I got some nice pictures. As the path was quite muddy in places and we didn't know how long it was we decided to turn back and drove to the harbour in the car.
At the harbour it was quite busy. A nice day combined with markets made a lot of people come out. We didn't hear a lot of English spoken though, mostly Spanish and Italian from what I heard. We went for a short walk here first to look at some of the boats, and we were lucky enough to see some greay seals as well! They come into the harbour in the hopes of getting fed I think.
After that we went to get something to eat, there were quite a few stalls with food and we decided to go for the crepes. They had different sweet and savoury fillings. The girls shared an egg, ham and cheese one, my mum had the same. Padraig (opa) had a tuna, mayonnaise and cheese one and I opted for the pesto, roast pepper and cheese. They were very yummy! We walked around the market stalls and then went in search of a toilet which was not easy, but we finally found one in the indoor market (which was very disappointing in itself). After that we drove back to Clondalkin.
In the evening my mum's second cousin (or something along those lines) came for dinner. She's Dutch and has been living in dublin for a while, she works for a company called Oracle. We had roast chicken and with coffee we had the apple pie we had bought at the market this afternoon.
Howth is situated to the north of Dublin city and the Dublin Bay. If you fly in from Europe you will actually fly over it, and while we were there my youngest daughter found it necessary to comment on every plane that flew over...
You can get to Howth by car, bus, or on the DART. I would recommend the latter as it will give you wonderful views across the bay and the station is very close to the harbour/marina.
We were there on a Sunday and this meant there were Farmer's Markets at the harbour. There are about 40 stalls with fresh produce and some food stalls as well. Along the harbour there are fish shops where you can purchase the catch of the day.
There are plenty of boast of course and some local seals visit the harbour in the hopes of being fed some fish. We saw about five of them up close, very exciting of course!
There is also a grassy area and a playground, so the kids can run around a bit. There are a few restaurants too which serve mostly fish dishes of course!
Some nice cliff walks around too if you feel so inclined.
I would definitely recommend this as a nice free day outing!
