Key Largo 2019

So!  It was my birthday yesterday!  (Yes I'm old, moving swiftly on).  

For maybe the best birthday present I've ever been given, we snuck away for a little weekend break "up North". 

Ha!  By "up North" I mean Key Largo, 2 hours away.

I do love a road trip as I think you know. Heck who doesn't?  (Seriously though, is there someone out there who doesn't like a road trip?? Please leave a comment if this is you!).  Funny though, the weather was not what I expected of a drive through the Florida Keys.  Overcast, cold and WINDY, it got cooler and cooler as we drove towards our destination of the Key Largo Bay Marriott Resort and Hotel.

A little stop off, along the way, at Tonio's for a spot of lunch. It was positively blustery but a perfect little dive place, just like I like 'em!

We arrived and checked in and we were delighted with our room. It was big!  

But cold.  The weather was cold.... 

As demonstrated by me wearing of long trousers in this photo (taken on the way home from dinner)

We had an early enough night (yes, I/we're old. Moving swiftly on).

Happy to report that we woke up to sunshine the next morning!

After a light breakfast I headed to the beach.  Seriously cute little beach with the sunbeds lined right up to  literally the shoreline which was very nice - nothing like hearing the waves lapping as you sunbathe.  

I started my Meg Cabot (author signed!) book which was an entertaining little read. The gist of my weekend, it has to be said, was either beach or pool and fantastic it was too.

Lunch was sushi!

On the way back from lunch I stopped off at a yard sale/consignment sale/storage unit sale....where a woman admired my dress ("Is it a Lilly? [Pulitzer]") and gave me a pair of sunglasses for free ("They go with your dress").  How nice was that?!

And then dinner!  Wow.  We ate early so that we would catch the sun setting while eating.  What a view!!!  Great food too.  Would it be weird if I described it as an (all encompassing) experience?  Ooh not forgetting the wine also!  Malbec ;)

After dinner we decided to do something we never do and have some cocktails.  They weren't the fanciest (e.g. craft) cocktails, I guess they were just "resort" type cocktails, but they were pretty good. And as I said, it's something we never do, so just getting them in themselves was fun.

After another light breakfast (coffee and bagel & cream cheese mmm) I headed down to the beach and pool for a last few hours of relaxing before getting on the road home.

For something fun and NEW we stopped off for some bridge fishing on the way home!  I can't lie, it was not the best fishing. We have a lot to learn about what bait, hook, lures etc to use...but sure it was a start! You have to start somewhere eh!

And home!  Where I realized that I had left my bike at work and it was needed for the next day.  So I headed downtown - where I caught the Veteran's Parade and bumped into friends Dawn and Gwen.  It's a small island lol, you can't go anywhere without bumping into someone.

Finally we finished a lovely (perfect even??) weekend with dinner in our favourite place ever Half Shell Raw Bar.  

Already we are talking that a weekend away in the Key Largo Bay resort may turn into a yearly event.  Get's a big thumbs up from me!

This week in pictures and a few small accompanying words!

Gosh I have had a busy week/weekend so shall do a flyover post with some photos of the highlights - of which there are many!



A sampling of some local hostelries.  In particular the hospitality of Baggot Street - last weekend I had a drink in a combination of Toners, Doheny and Nesbitts, O'Donohues, McGrattans and of course my favourite Reilly's.  After 20 months of living on Merrion Street I finally have a local!  We also took a stroll down to the Grand Canal area (near the Grand Canal Theatre/Marker hotel and the Google and Facebook quarter) where we had a drink in Charlotte Quay.

 

A visit to Mary's pub.

And burgers in Wowburger.  Mary's is a cute little pub off Grafton Street on Wicklow Street.  It's done up in the style of an old Irish grocer/pub/shop.  It actually sells hardware along with the Guinness!  It's cute but I wouldn't be rushing back.  I do like the way they have wowburger downstairs though I must say!  It's quick and handy and the burgers are decent.



Free Vaseline! Well kind of.  I realised I had none on my person while walking down Grafton Street so I nipped into Boots where the girl on the till helpfully pointed out that I had enough points on my boots card to get it with.  It takes ages to build up any kind of points to get something  so I must remember instead just to exchange them for Vaseline in future - if you know me you know I like to carry and use it all the time as my lips can get quite dehydrated. Also if you know me, you know I like free stuff :-)



Rosa Madre, Crowe Street
I simply cannot recommend this lovely Italian seafood eaterie enough.  A shared starter of baked (melt in your mouth) scallops were flavoursome and divine.  Then for my main I was very excited to try the seabass which was completely covered and baked in a crust of rock salt.  Once cooked it was brought from the kitchen in the baking tray, shown for inspection and then taken away to be chipped out of the salt shell, fileted nice and neat, before being returned to the table for eating.  It was a plain white fish - simple and succulent with nice flavour from the salt and lemon oil.

Cottage in Connemara.
I had the BEST little mini break in Galway.  In fact the only criticism was it was too short.  Look at that beautiful lake (right beside the house where I stayed).  How beautiful is it?!! 



Culchie Chinese food in Connemara :-)  A sharing platter of satay chicken, bbq ribs, spring rolls and sesame prawn toast. To be fair it tasted much better than it photographed. And it was a fun evening with lovely company!

DM from a blog reader. 
I received a lovely DM tweet from a reader of my blog telling me they had recently got involved the pro-choice movement and saying how helpful they had found my recent Repeal the 8th blog post.

Paleo soup
Do you remember my recipe for sweet potato and chorizo soup?  I made it again this week and loooooved it.



Little Museum of Dublin.  This morning I nipped to the LMoD to see an exhibition on Irish fashion which is due to close soon.  The 50s and 60's really were the heyday for exports of beautiful Irish design and materials (tweed).  Sybil Connolly as always is my favourite designer of that period.  Classic and elegant.

All in all, I've had an action packed and FABULOUS few days.  Here's to some further fabulous days in the near future!