48 hours in: Dublin

How to spend a weekend in the Irish capital...

Friday, noon Check into the award-winning Merrion Hotel (tel: [phone], www.merrionhotel.com, rooms from e250 for two sharing a standard queen room in June).

1pm Lunch at Ireland’s only two-star Michelin restaurant, Patrick Guilbaud ([phone], www.restaurantpatrickguilbaud.ie), featuring contemporary Irish cuisine with classical roots. The atmosphere is far from stuffy though, and the impeccable service is delivered with typical Irish warmth.

3.30pm Take a stroll to the Old Library at Trinity College and visit the Book of Kells exhibition. It’s become a must-see for visitors since it was first displayed in the mid-19th century.

7pm Meet upstairs in the Duke Pub (www.dublinpubcrawl.com, e13) for a pub-crawl with a difference. This hilarious romp through the city is punctuated with refreshments in some of Dublin’s best bars andt combines a crash course in Ireland’s best-known literary geniuses and their works.

Saturday, 11am Sign up for the Bloomsday Walk (e8, www.jamesjoyce.ie). Leaving from the James Joyce Centre, this one-hour walking tour takes in some of the most important locations from Joyce’s Ulysses.

12.30pm Lunch at Davey Byrnes (21 Duke Street), for not-to-be missed seafood and Guinness, or you could opt for a gorgonzola sandwich and a glass of burgundy like Leopold Bloom.

3pm A ten-minute walk gets you to St Stephen’s Green where a gala afternoon of songs and readings from Ulysses are hosted at the bandstand by Irish playwright Peter Sheridan.

10.30pm Another short stroll to Temple Bar for a late-night screening of Ulysses (e5). This 1967 adaptation, starring Milo O’Shea, is showing outdoors in Meeting House Square.

THE FACTS

Flights from Edinburgh and Glasgow to Dublin are available with various carriers from £70 return.