Long weekends caused by bank holidays always tend to lead to expensive flights and hotels as demand pushes the costs up. Thankfully I scored a relatively cheap flight with Ryanair to Dublin. Ironically Dublin consistently ranks in the top 20 most expensive in the world, this year coming in at number 18. I only spent two days there despite the long weekend since I found the hotel exorbitantly expensive but I think I still got a good feel for the city in this short time.

On my first day I joined a tour that ended up in Glendalough (Valley of the Two Lakes) where we took in some marvellously spectacular scenery. The rolling green hills and a herd of sheep blocking off the path for our bus reminded me a lot of my time on the south island of New Zealand. The tour also stopped along the way at the town of Avoca (also known as Ballykissangel for the BBC series set and shot in this town).

After getting back from the tour we joined the Dublin Literary Pub Crawl, a comical trip around town with a group of actors recalling famous quotes and interesting stories from a number of the most famous writers raised in Dublin. Not particularly expensive and not technically a real pub crawl, it’s a fun and entertaining way to see parts of Dublin. People we spoke to also highly recommended the alternative musical pub crawl (it’s funny how most things in Dublin have to do with drinking).

We ended up in some club just south of the infamous and overly touristy Temple Bar area and stayed until closing (which is surprisingly early at 2 or 3am). I found Irish people probably the friendliest out of the places I have been too, with both girls and guys likely to start or continue a conversation. At the end of the night though, I also found the Irish the loudest and some of them the most aggressive I’ve seen. The numerous broken bottles and aftermath of rubbish in the streets the next day only emphasises this observation.

Though I struggled to wake early I still managed to get around to most of the sights in Dublin. The city is great for pedestrians with pretty much most of them all within walking distance. I visited Trinity College, home to the Book of Kells but I couldn’t wait out the long queues for such a quick trip. A short trip away is the Dublin Castle that was full of impressive sand sculptures and the Dublin City Hall just near that.

Overall I found the city of Dublin extremely warm and welcoming and although it didn’t seem overly dangerous, I noticed quite a number of dodgy people simply walking the streets, even during the day.

You can see more of the pictures here.