Dublin

Dublin is a small city that punches far above its weight, and the trick is to treat it as a walking town threaded with great conversation rather than a checklist of monuments. The compact centre splits along the River Liffey: the literary, cultural south side around Trinity College, Grafton Street and St. Stephen's Green, and the grittier, increasingly cool north side around O'Connell Street and the artisan-food district of Stoneybatter. Book your three big-ticket sights, the Book of Kells, the Guinness Storehouse and Kilmainham Gaol, online days ahead, because they sell out and Kilmainham in particular runs on hard timed slots that vanish in summer. Everything else rewards the unplanned: a proper trad session in a back-room snug, a pint of stout that takes a slow two-part pour to settle, a damp walk along the Grand Canal half-remembering Kavanagh. Skip the marked-up tourist pubs of the Temple Bar strip for a drink and instead drift to a Victorian heritage bar or a Liberties local where you can actually hear yourself. Dublin is also a brilliant launchpad: the DART railway whisks you to the cliff walks of Howth in 25 minutes, and Glendalough's monastic valley is a short coach ride into the Wicklow Mountains. Pack a rain jacket, accept that the weather changes by the hour, and let the city's warmth do the rest.