Somebody, sometime, decided this stretch of coast looked like the Bay of Naples, and the names stuck — Sorrento, Vico, the Italian Riviera transplanted to a granite headland south of Dublin. It is half a joke and half completely fair. The walk takes the village, the coast road, and the hill that delivers the view.
Six kilometres, best in the afternoon. Start in Dalkey, a village with two medieval castles standing in the main street as if that were normal — it was the working port of Dublin once. Out past Sorrento Point to the Vico Road, curving above the sea past the country's most expensive houses and the stone swimming steps the locals have used for a century.
Then up into Killiney Hill Park, public ground since 1887, climbing through the woods to the obelisk on the summit. From the top the whole bay curves away to Bray Head and the Great Sugar Loaf beyond — the view that earned all those Italian names. Drop down the far side to Killiney station, where the DART runs along the shore. Catch it in the low afternoon light.
