Ireland day 0891. Thursday 07 March 2024- Relaxing *

Ireland day 0891. Thursday 07 March 2024- Relaxing

Today’s summary	Made full use of the hotel swimming pool facilities before checking out from the Shelbourne at 12. Spent most of the afternoon having a gentle wander round St Stephen’s Green and the shops in the Grafton Street area. Caught a train back to Malahide about 4pm then just a short walk and some Sopranos in the evening
Today’s weather	Dry and bright. Light south easterly wind. Appx 8c

Today’s overview location (The blue mark shows the location of our route)		Close-up location (The blue line shows where we walked) (Click button below to download GPX of today’s walk as recorded, or see interactive map at bottom with elevations corrected): Hills of Howth walk

Commentary

(Summary blog only. Last full blog was Day 0368).

We had a thoroughly lovely stay at the Shelbourne and didn’t want to spoil the effect by rushing away early. So we made full use of the delayed (12 noon) checkout to have a leisurely breakfast and a long cooling dip in the swimming pool. A lovely way to start the day. The only downside was catching sight of myself in a mirror in the changing rooms and realising how much weight I have put on lately. As Billy Connolly reminds us, I need to move more and eat less. I’m starting right now (just as soon as I have finished these biscuits).

Once checked out, we left our bags with the concierge and spent a relaxing few hours in the early afternoon strolling round St Stephen’s Green (right opposite the hotel) and then into the shops around the Grafton Street area. I treated myself to a tea strainer in “Stock” kitchen shop, and a book on train travel in Dubray Books. We certainly know how to live.

Eventually though we had to return to the real world, so picked up our bags and made our way back to Malahide via the DART from Pearse station. Now we are back, I’m going to go on a short walk (part of the Connolly regime, of course) then I think we will watch a couple more episodes of the Sopranos.

We both thoroughly enjoyed our mini-break. I’d love to do it more often but I’m not sure I could make a lifestyle out of it. The deep luxury might start to become cloying after a while. Oysters need some grit to make pearls!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


The park-keeper’s lodge in St Stephen’s Green. Played a pivotal role in the 1916 uprising	Stock Design kitchen shop. I treated myself to a tea strainer

Inside the Powerscourt shopping centre. Some interesting idiosyncratic shops in there	Rather lovely Morgan Aero 8 outside the Merrion Hotel (a rival to The Shelbourne, incidentally, at the top-end of the Dublin hotel market). Morgan stopped making this model in 2018 but all is not lost as you can pick up a newish model for a mere €250,000. They are notoriously unreliable



My souvenir from Dubray Books. Lots of good ideas for future projects!