A long weekend in Ireland – day 1, Dublin | alison richards

For all the cheap tickets you can find to Europe, I was never able to find a cheap flight to Ireland! I put that down to demand - I assume lots of Irish people live in the UK and so travel home on the weekends. Or maybe just everyone wants to be in Dublin! Whatever it is, I finally found decently priced tickets for February and I snapped them up! I had a pretty full-on agenda while there, so left my place in London at 4am to catch my 8am flight from Stansted to land in Dublin around 10am. I caught the bus from the airport to the city, then found my hotel to dump my luggage, then it was back out to pound the streets.

I walked along the River Liffey for a while, before ducking off to some points of interest, including Temple Bar, then did a huge detour loop to pop into a few shops I had on my map before ending up at the Dublin Castle. It was lunchtime, so I made my way to Cornucopia, this vegetarian restaurant that I'd heard so much about! I had a huge plate of vegetarian mains and salad and bread... and it was delicious, highly recommended!

These seagulls look like they’re having a chat!

Very colourful building just near the river

Some interesting graffiti I spotted on my walk

Spring starting early in the garden of the Chester Beattie Library

After lunch, I had a look around some of the streets near Cornucopia, before heading towards Trinity College to have a look around. I had bought tickets to the Book of Kells exhibition and the old library for Monday, so only had a little look around, as I wanted to go and see the whole place properly. I wandered back through the Dublin Southside area, then back to Temple Bar, which I walked along until I got to a little cafe called Queen of Tarts. It was time to stop in for afternoon tea, where I had a pear and chocolate tart with a pot of tea - despite the sunshine in the photos, it was pretty chilly outside.

Laduree looks pretty and Parisian no matter where it is!

The most adorable old bookstore, Hodges Figg, which was getting a fresh paint job at the time!

Just up from the Molly Malone statue, this pub was decked out in Ireland colours, not only because it was in Ireland, but the Irish Rugby union team were playing France in the first match of the Six Nations.

It was almost 4pm, so I started heading back to my hotel to sort myself out for dinner and for my adventures tomorrow. I was getting up early and picking up a car in Dublin to take a road trip out to the coast, so it was a quiet night for me. I popped down to a little fast food place nearby called Boojum - it was recommended to me by a friend, and it had a line almost to the door so it was bound to be good. I ordered a burrito bowl and ate it in the restaurant for dinner. And yes, it was tasty! Then it was time for an early night.... Pity the walls in my hotel were so thin and I could hear my drunk neighbours chatting all night. Won't be going back to that hotel!