Free tours in Dublin

Dublin is walkable without effort: the historic centre fits between the Grand Canal and the Royal Canal, and the Liffey river splits the city into two halves, north and south. From Trinity College to Christ Church Cathedral is a fifteen-minute walk, and most free tours cover the centre in a two-and-a-half-hour stroll. It is a flat city of short streets and red-brick Georgian façades, where you go from an 18th-century pub to a university library on the same block.

The first route is the southside: Trinity College and its Book of Kells, the shopping street of Grafton Street, St. Stephen's Green park and the courtyard of Dublin Castle. The second is the medieval quarter, with Christ Church Cathedral, St Patrick's Cathedral and the Viking centre of Dublinia on the way to The Liberties, the neighbourhood of the old Guinness brewery. The third crosses the Ha'penny Bridge to the north, up to O'Connell Street, the General Post Office of the 1916 Rising and The Spire. For the literary side, the Museum of Literature Ireland gathers the legacy of Joyce and Beckett a step from St. Stephen's Green.

Almost all the departures take place in the south of the centre, by the Molly Malone statue on Suffolk Street or in front of the City Hall on Dame Street, a step from Dublin Castle. There are morning departures, around 10:00 or 11:00, and others in the early afternoon; the morning one dodges the big groups and catches better light for the photos at Trinity College. Booking is free and, at the end of the walk, you give the guide a voluntary contribution.

If you have a day to spare, the excursions leave from the centre itself: to the north, the Giant's Causeway and Belfast, with a stop at Dunluce Castle; to the south, the Wicklow Mountains, the monastery of Glendalough and the medieval town of Kilkenny. And to take a piece of Ireland home, there are workshops where you forge your own Claddagh ring or a masterclass in Irish coffee.