The boats might be a lie, since I gave you boats in part one, however, I am happy to deliver more boats in this episode. Just so I'm not a liar. That's important.
As of the last post, I had just turned inland on my jaunt around the island of Howth. Just before turning inland the map promises a tower (Martello Tower to be precise) and when I reached my turn in point I could see the tower, but it was not nearly exciting enough to lure me off the path. When I hear of a tower I expect a proper tower (of at least fifty feet) but this one was maybe twenty feet and didn't look nearly as old or decrepit as I had been hoping. So, the tower was bypassed.
A brief digression: Martello Towers were built by the English to in the early 1800s as a means of maintaining heavy artillery. They became obsolete relatively quickly, but there are still a ton of them around wherever the English had a military presence in the 1800s (so most of the world). If you're really interested in the Martello Towers check out wikipedia.org for more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martello_tower#Ireland (I don't normally recommend wikipedia as a source for research, but if it's just a cursory interest: go for it.)
So, I bypassed the tower (it was getting to be pretty late in the day, I wanted to see the castle still, and I had a meeting at Trinity later that afternoon) and continued inland. I was fairly well convinced that trekking through the interior of the island would be far less interesting that the walk around the cliffs, but I was wrong. (I'm going to try using a larger size picture today and see if that works any better. I think with the smaller size you end up losing a lot of detail).
After turning inland I had to hike up one of the larger hills on the island, but I was rewarded with a view of Dublin Bay. I have a bunch of pictures of the Bay, and I'll tell you where everything is, but I really like this picture of the bay because it almost looks like there used to be a gate here. (For the record, I love gates. I love taking pictures of them, and I am sure I will make a post all about gates in Ireland). Anyways, I had to share this picture because of the old feeling I got from it while I was taking the picture. Behind me are a bunch of houses, and while they aren't "modern" they certainly don't look old. Looking this way, over the water, made me feel as though I had stepped back in time a hundred years. That was a feeling I got a lot while I lived in Ireland. Sometimes I felt like I had gone back to a place where table manners counted, you still had to be introduced to a dancing partner, and no one went to their college classes in pajamas.
This is Dublin Bay and the tiny strip of land that connects Howth with the mainland. The tiny strip of land is on the far right, the rest is of Dublin Bay. You can't see the mountains here, they are off in the distance, and they faded into the background with the overcast skies. The tides in Dublin are really extreme. I was staying on the southern end of the Dublin area (near Blackrock) and in the morning the tide would be so far out you could walk for nearly a mile out without getting to the water, but in the evening the water would be right up to the rocks along the road! Likewise the Liffey's depth (the river running through Dublin) changes several feet between high and low tides. The tide was pretty average since I was walking in the late afternoon, but in the morning there is a lot more sand than water in the bay.
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| This picture was taken with a 4.3 megapixel camera! Most of your phones have more megapixels than that. |
I continued onward and had to walk through a golf course. There were a number of signs warning me to be quiet and not to disturb the players, so I didn't take any pictures of the golf course. Despite the cold weather and potential rainfall there were a lot of people still out on the course. As I was later told: if you wait for a day without rain to play golf in Ireland, you'll never play. This seems true. After that the trail got really muddy as I walked through a "bog." I was promised a "Bog of frogs" but the bog wasn't particularly boggy nor were there any frogs. The bog is on the same land as the big hotel (Deer Park) of Howth, so it makes sense that their bog is a bit more "upscale" than those found in the Wicklow Mountains. Speaking of the Wicklow Mountains: this is a picture of a bog in the Wicklow Mountains. It looks a lot more like a bog than Howth's "Bog of Frogs" so it's included here instead of the "Bog of Frogs." The "Bog of Frogs" and I also had a problem because it appeared as though a very, very old grave was near the path, but upon getting to the point where I believed it should be there was no way to get to it. With a muddy path and a meeting with a professor I hadn't yet met, I decided to forego the adventure to the grave and continue on the path.
The path was relatively uninteresting after the "bog" and I was soon in the residential part of Howth. The residential part, at least, that doesn't lie directly on the ocean (so where most people live who live in Howth). It looked a lot like other streets in "suburban" Dublin, at least the ones without the Georgian row houses, and since there were people out and about I decided not to take pictures as I try not to make people feel "exotic" (it's an uncomfortable feeling at best).
The next stop on my Howth trek was the castle! I LOVE castles. I think it must be because I am American and we have absolutely nothing like it in the States. The closest we can really come is the oil tycoon houses, and while they are impressive they aren't old, they've never been under siege, and they generally aren't in ruins. So I love castles. When I'm on a trip I always try to find a castle, and I'm amassing a decent collection at this point. I also like to find cathedrals, but that's a story for another day. So, when I saw Howth Castle on the map I could not pass up the chance to see this castle. The city of Dublin has its own castle, but at this point it doesn't look much like a castle anymore and it's a bit disappointing, so I was worried that Howth Castle would leave me feeling much the same.
To my delight this was Howth Castle! It looks like a proper castle. I was ecstatic. The downside of Howth Castle? You can't get into it. Now, according to the tourism website there is a restaurant in the castle and there is also a cooking school here (and I think a transportation museum?). Now, this is generally a cause of concern for me, I prefer my castles in an unadulterated state (I like them to look old and ruined like they are) not made into something they are not (like a transportation museum). However, there were signs all over the castle telling me I was not allowed near the castle and that I was not to trespass. These signs are usually warnings (I try not to ruin anything old by stepping on it, nor to put myself in danger). But if I want to walk around a castle and take pictures I will, sign or no sign. However, Howth Castle was right on the road into the Deer Park Hotel (the fancy schmancy hotel in Howth) and I looked a little like a bum (it was cold, and I had just walked several miles). Anyways, I certainly did not look as though I was a guest of the Deer Park Hotel and didn't want to push my luck.
So I settled on taking some pictures near the front of the castle and near the gardens. The gardens are also supposedly open to the public, but as you can see they were not open the day I was there (look below). I was tempted to meander closer to the Deer Park Hotel, but the number of glares I got from Mercedes drivers led me to conclude I should just head back to Dublin and get ready for my meeting at TCD. That didn't disappoint me too much, I've seen plenty of fancy hotels while I've been in Ireland, and quite frankly, I wasn't sure how Deer Park would be greatly different.
This picture of the locked gate into the gardens leads me to a photography point I'd like to make. Most of my pictures from Howth have been in black and white, and as I said earlier this is because of the feel I got from the pictures as I was taking them and going through them later. There was something about the feel of autumn in the air, the wind, and the overcast sky that made me think these pictures belonged in black and white. So, instead of using the simple black and white tool on iphoto and leaving it at that, I also boosted or faded (it's also a simple button in iphoto) until I had what I liked. Black and white can feel a little two dimensional, so I adjusted so each black and white has a slightly different feel. Sometimes I would even un(de?)saturate the color until it was almost black and white. I also adjusted the shadow or the highlight to get the texture I wanted (all of this is under the adjust menu of iphoto). The picture of the garden, however, is not in black and white, but it's also not in color (as is the first picture of Howth Castle) it's a little brownish/reddish and that's because I used a filter. But wait! you ask, I thought you had a camera that doesn't use filters!
If you thought that you are certainly correct. I cannot attach filters to my lens, however, that doesn't mean I can't use filters. In fact, I use my sunglasses. Several years ago I got some faux Coach sunglasses that have brown lenses, and in a stroke of genius last year I figured out that I could take pictures through my sunglasses! (If I could see through my sunglasses so could my camera) This was absolutely mindblowing for me. I mean it. It was like I had just discovered gravity. But it opened up a whole new world of options for me. I'll admit it is tricky to hold the sunglasses and the camera at the same time, but if I want to make an effect on picture (particularly in the fall when everything tends to be a bit warmer anyway) it's worth it. I have regular dark lenses too, and if I want to slow down my shutter speed without overexposing the film....ta da! This discovery changed how I take pictures. Forever. I don't have to be sad about not having cool filters (well I do, because some of the filters are pretty sweet....like the ones that are half and half) because I can make my own. I took five dollar sunglasses and used them with my camera to do something I wouldn't be able to do in iphoto and I don't otherwise have the capabilities of doing. Simple tricks go a long way to making your pictures unique. |
| Boats. I'm not a liar. Also, part of an old abbey. |
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