Ireland Adventures: Day 3

Up, up and away for day three! I thought this might be a lighter walking day, so I chose to go for a run before breakfast. The city was a bit interesting, so I decided to run on the hotel treadmill. This was in the basement of the hotel, where it felt like the catacombs. (Lights came on by motion sensor.) First up, I noticed the treadmill was in kilometers, not miles. Hmm. I used my watch to track. I came back and stretched. Then off to the breakfast buffet. Man, was it a buffet!

Staff checked us in using our room number, seated us at restaurant tables, and then let us do our thing. I went for a (partial) Irish breakfast: baked beans, tomatoes, mushrooms, and fried eggs. They did ask if we wanted coffee, and yes, we did, so we helped ourselves to that. I took back some baked goods for snack, because I couldn't get close to trying anywhere near what they had.

We walked to the bus stop, and then took a bus across town. Then it was a hike to the Pohlberg Lighthouse. We had planned this trip from the beginning, and even seen the lighthouse from the air. Well, the walk around the coast was gorgeous: sun glinting off the water, seeing for miles, etc. The pier, made of hewn stone, was also cool. Unfortunately, the lighthouse was underwhelming, but the experience was totally worth it. We walked 6.86 miles, and that was only the lighthouse walk. 

We made another souvenir stop on the way back to the hotel, at Weaver's of Ireland. We specifically stopped to by the knit lamb keychains that are Ireland's take on the labubu. I came back and took a nap. My husband ventured out to get some lunch, but unfortunately got accosted on the way. A man ran at him, threatened to slash his face, and told him to walk a certain way down the street. All the while, my husband said, people just kept walking by. That shook my husband up a bit, so he came back to the hotel instead of getting lunch. Later, he went and made a report to the Garda (Ireland's police). They said that if they found a man matching that description and he had a knife, they would arrest him. In Ireland, carrying a knife is apparently a crime in and of itself. My husband carried bruises from that assault through the rest of our trip.

After I woke up, we walked out to see Christ Church Cathedral and the site of Neal's Music Hall. I grew up listening to Handel's Messiah every Christmas, and this was the first place people performed it. I took lots of pictures to show my family.

We made dinner reservations at Gallagher's Boxty House, my one request for the trip. My husband and I shared a boxty platter so I could try all the potato things: potato loaf, potato dumplings, traditional boxty pancake, and boxty fries. All were good, but also a little underwhelming. We shared some bread and butter pudding with a side of vanilla ice cream (less sweet again, for the win). Then it was back to the hotel to try to get some sleep before our next day's plans.