"Dublin" Dublin by ralph.soule

We arrived in Dublin in the morning, 1030, Tuesday 22 June. We took the express bus (747) from Dublin to O'Connell Street (we bought the tickets for 20 euros for two, 13 euro for singles, at the travel information center in the terminal, but you can also buy them directly from the driver as you board the bus). In Dublin, we stayed at Lynham's Hotel, right on O'Connell Street, close to the Spire. Not deluxe, but comfortable and very affordable (59 euros per night, Jun 2010).

On our first day, we visited Trinity College (campus tour provided by students as well as Book of Kells exhibit), the Grafton Street shopping area (including a Starbuck's), and Saint Stephens Green.

On the second day, we took the self-guided audio tour of Christ Church Cathedral (founded sometime after 1028), attended the noon prayer for peace (front row seats), then toured Dublin Castle, The Dubh Linn garden behind the castle, the Chester Beatty Library (next to the Dubh Linngarden), and Grafton Street again. We spent the evening doing the Literary Pub Crawl, which was a lot of fun. We could have eaten during the pub crawl (challenging since the stops are brief), but we waited until afterward. This posed a problem as most of the restaurants were closed. We did find one open on O'Connell Street, Pulau Pinang, a Malaysian restaurant. The food was quite good, but the best feature was that the restaurant was open when most of the others were not. Good food and service were a bonus.

On day three, we started at the Dublin Writers Museum. We spent nearly two hours there and it provided great detail on Irish writers and their works. We then moved to the National Museum of Archeology via Remembrance Garden (civil war memorial) and Trinity College (to find out who is in the sarcophagus in the exam room, but the students giving the tours did not know). At the end of the day, we walked to St Patrick's Cathedral (arriving after it closed, we should have taken a cab there), and finished the day at Oliver St John Gogarty's pub for live Irish music.

• Pros:Lots to do, most of it within walking distance, friendly people
• Cons:Typical big city, lots of beggars, crowds
• In a nutshell:Lively City with Lots to Do