romantic weekend in Dublin - suggestions needed

[treacletart]

My mates are leaving DS1&2 with grandparents and heading to Dublin next weekend - any ideas for them?

yeh - take loads of money with them !! as we went to dublin 2 yrs ago and we ended up spending more than we expected, we went for a weekend and it was ok as it was at the end of oct and weather was battering gales all that weekend and the hotel was freezing - brrrr! so we ended up putting the spare bed quilt up against the curtain as the wind was coming in - you felt like you was camping but it was lovely though.

I know that the Cobalt Cafe is putting on "Shaw Goes A-Wooing" in the Cobalt Cafe (North Great Georges St.) on Saturday. It's a collection of extracts from G.B.S. dealing with love, marriage and sex. Supposed to be good.

Where are they staying do you know. Northside or Southside. Know Dublin well as lived there for many years. Can recommend some nice places to eat that are either cheap and cheerful or bordering on the obscene. Tell them to stay away from Temple Bar, full of hens and stags throwing up everywhere. Early evening it is nice to saunter there. I have an Irish National paper here but havn't had a chance to look at it yet. I will check out whats on at the moment and come back.

Cheers MissG, I think they're staying on St Stephen's Green

Nice!! There's a lovely Thai restaurant just off the Green called 'Papaya'. They do a great early bird menu.

The National Art Gallery is a five minute walk - nice place to have a quiet lunch.

Grafton St runs from the Green down to Trinity College - lots of shops, pubs and places to eat (especially in the side streets off Grafton).

Is there anything in particular they are interested in Treacletart?

Thanks nerdgirl - bit of art? good food? they mentioned they might try to get out to the countryside on one day

If they want to leave the city -

the DART will take them along the Dublin coast - Howth, Malahide, Blackrock and Dun Laoighre are all worth a visit.

for the countryside though, you'd probably be better with a car or they could take the 44 bus from Merrion Square out to Enniskerry

Check out these maps (your friends are staying in the D2 area)

I would recommend going on a bus tour....very entertaining and gives you a good overview of the city and it's history. We also used it to get to various attractions as the ticket lasts for 24 hours and you can use it as much as you like and get on and off as much as you like.

I second the bus tour, really enjoyed this and as buttonmoon says, the ticket is valid for a long time. We made good use of it.

Be careful with the dart though its not running northiside at weekends due to upgrade works so thats Malahide and Howth out of the picture.