Day 1 – Sunday (14/12/2014)
We took the DART (train) from Grand Canal station in Dublin and after half an hour, we arrived in Howth. This small town is located on a peninsula and used to be the most important port for supplying Dublin. Today, it is known for its strong fishing market and beautiful landscapes that combine mountains and sea.
We picked up a free city map from a supermarket near the train station and started to get a feel for what we had to see. We started the tour by walking along a street with many seafood restaurants, which runs through the city's port and stopped at the end of it to enjoy the view of the Ireland's eye, an island that is one kilometer from the city and is considered a tourist spot.
From there, we walked along the bay and loved the energy of the city.
Making the trail
We arrived at the starting point from where the 4 trails Howth Head (hill) begin, being them: Green Trail – Cliff Path Loop, Blue Trail – Tramline Loop, Red Trail – Black Linn Loop and the Purple Trail – Bof of Frogs Loop.
We started excitedly with the red trail, which also passes through Bog of Frogs, but after some time of walking and drizzle, we thought the blue trail would be great for that Sunday afternoon. We didn't regret it. 🙂
Howth Market
We finished the trail hungry and decided to stop at the city market to eat something quick, to have time to explore the city while it was still daylight. (It was already after 2 pm and it usually gets dark at 4:30 pm in the winter). We went into the market and what excited us the most was a portion of breaded squid, which was delicious by the way.
Howth Castle
We discovered that the owners were Brazilian and had lived in Ireland for 9 years. They recommended going to Howth Castle, which was located opposite the city center. The castle dates back to the 13th century and is one of the oldest inhabited structures in the country. It has belonged to the same family for over 800 years and there are still people living there! I thought this was great. The castle does not have a museum, but you can visit some rooms if you book in advance. It also has a very renowned cooking school. The Kitchen in the Castle Cookery School, which should be the most frequented.
Look how beautiful this is, guys..
We left the castle and went to the city center, which is lovely with its little shops, houses and restaurants, as well as the St. Mary's Church.
Dining in Howth
We passed by some restaurants that were highly rated on TripAdvisor (The House and The Abbey Tavern), but we thought it would be better to go to Octopussy, which is a highly recommended tapas bar (#2 in their ranking). We stopped first at a market/restaurant called Beshoff's Market , for Celo to satisfy his desire to eat oysters, but then we saw that our tapas bar also had them. If regret could kill…lol
We loved the bar and luckily we arrived before the opening hours for table reservations (7pm). We sat from 5pm to 7pm at a kind of indoor counter with a view of the outside of the restaurant and ate 4 delicious tapas. I had shrimp with garlic butter and homemade bread + fresh cod with an amazingly good white wine sauce with parmesan and leek. Celo had seafood with a sauce similar to mine and then scallops with another very good sauce too. We highly recommend it!
Update: We went back to Howth a few times during the 4 years we spent in Dublin and of course we went back to the beloved restaurant above! <3
