Food. And, of course, drink.

I can't move on from Wicklow stories to Dublin stories without first talking about food. I need to explain how it was that I could spend a week hiking 10 rugged miles a day across fields, through forests, and up mountains -- at least one of which I conquered on all fours -- and then spend another week hiking for hours every day, all over the city, and still come home five pounds heavier.

The answer lies in one word: Prepaid. Oh, and maybe in one other word: Delicious.

We paid one flat fee for everything in Wicklow: the hotel, the b&b with the rocks, the guiding and driving services of Christopher and his wife, and the food: mammoth Irish breakfasts, sack lunches for the trail, and absolutely gargantuan dinners.

You already know about Irish breakfasts: brown bread, and mixed toast, and fried eggs, and half a tomato, two slices of salty pink bacon, two or three plump rashers, and two kinds of pudding. The dinners were just as generous.

The hotel restaurant was charming, built like a bridge over the little stream that ran behind the hotel, with windows all around. Every night around 7:30 or 8 p.m. the rain began, and we sat at our table (usually the same table) and watched the drops streak past the glass.

And while we watched the rain, we ate. And ate and ate and ate.

It was all prepaid, of course. So what could we do?  We had paid for a starter, a main course, and a dessert, so technically if we skipped a course, we were throwing money away. Salad was never an option; I got the distinct sense that the Irish aren't big on lettuce as a meal. Even when we ordered our sack lunch sandwiches "with salad," most of the time we'd get them with coleslaw, not lettuce.

Appetizers were meal-worthy in themselves: deviled crabmeat on toast, or prawns in garlicky butter, or soup: I ordered the seafood soup once and instead of a tiny cup like you'd get here it came in a mixing bowl. It was like a gallon of soup, with big chunks of salmon. In his own futile attempt to be healthful, Doug ordered the fruit, which came with a generous dollop of sorbet and a spray of Irish Mist liqueur.


And that would be fine, except that after you finished the starter, you were faced with a main course. Duck, steak, chicken breasts (two!), wide noodles in a creamy tomato sauce with more prawns. Everything came with a side order of vegetables, a basket of bread, and a large bowl of boiled potatoes. (Of course.)

And when you were groaning, and wondering how you'd make it back to your room without the weight of your giant stomach pulling you face downward onto the carpeting, the nice waitress came back and asked for your dessert order.

Like I said, we had to order dessert: We'd already paid for it. Lemon tart and chocolate cake and apple crumble with fresh cream.

Once, in a feeble attempt to scale back, I asked if I could have a small dish of sorbet, like the sorbet that Doug got as his starter. The waiter was so astounded by my request that he summoned the waitress (his wife) in case he had misunderstood. She asked me again, with great concern. Was there something wrong with me? Something wrong with the desserts? If I must have the sorbet, wouldn't I prefer to have the entire starter, with fruit and Irish Mist? "It's no trouble," they assured me.

No, no, I said. Just a small dish of sorbet. Citrus. One scoop.

They scurrired off to the kitchen, looking deeply perplexed.

And what they brought back was this:

Three scoops of sorbet, with leaves of fresh mint and a little woven cap made of butterscotch. I was going to have to go down swinging.

Oh, and now that I think about it, perhaps there is one other word that explains the weight gain. You know the word. All together now:


Guinness.