The Black Pool: Adventures in Howth

I had the chance to go to Howth, a peninsula north of Dublin on the east coast of Ireland. It's a 20-ish minute ride on the DART with lovely ocean views. Every weekend there is an outdoor market with all kinds of fruits and vegetables, breads and cakes. There are jewelry vendors and antique booths. It's a lovely to wander through the aisles looking at all the hidden gems and tasty treats.

When we first arrived in Howth we walked by the marina and yacht club. The boats were stunning and it happened to be a very beautiful sunny day, perfect for sailing. Here are some of the boats still in the marina but just as many, if not more, were taking advantage of day in Dublin Bay.

My companions, Emma and Kate and I grabbed a quick bite to eat and headed over to the market. Our first stop was this lovely pastry booth. They had baclava, tea cakes, jelly rolls and many more delicious treats.

Doesn't it look heavenly?!

Just around the corner is the greatest food stand I could imagine:

Yes!!! Olives! Every olive option you could imagine: kalamata olives, stones in or out, green olives stuffed with garlic, feta cheese, pimentos, almonds! They had homemade hummus and pesto, seafood salad, feta and red pepper salad. So many delicious treats! The best part about the stand was that all of the food was in giant wooden barrels with hand carved wooden spoons and LOTS of olive sampling platters!

After eating a fair amount of olives and picking a selection to bring home we all walked down the boardwalk to see the main attraction-- seals! There is a small pod of seal that hang out down the wharf and every day people buy bags of fish and feed them. They are quite hefty seals as they know about this secret and take full advantage of it by looking at you with those big dark eyes and romping around together in the water. I took a fair amount of pictures, here are a few to coo over: everyone together now......"aawwwww"

After seeing those you'll have to understand why I caved, bought a bag of fish, picked up a few gloves and tossed some treats to them in the water. There was a fresh fish store just across the street from the seal show where they sell all kinds of fresh seafood and usually cod or herring for the seals.

The fish were pretty gross (they are in the styrofoam box in the back) but the seals seemed to love them!