Sightseeing Tours

Bus Tours

Dublin Bus has three- and four-hour "City Tours" of the city center that include Trinity College, the Royal Hospital Kilmainham, and Phoenix Park. The one-hour City Tour, with hourly departures, allows you to hop on and off at any of the main sights. Tickets are available from the driver or Dublin Bus. There's also a continuous guided open-top bus tour (EUR 12.50), run by Dublin Bus, which allows you to hop on and off the bus as often as you wish and visit some 15 sights along its route. The company also conducts a north-city coastal tour, going to Howth, and a south-city tour, traveling as far as Enniskerry.

Gray Line Tours runs city-center tours that cover the same sights as the Dublin Bus itineraries. Bus Éireann organizes day tours out of Busaras, the main bus station, to country destinations such as Glendalough.

Information

Bus Éireann (01/836-6111. www.buseireann.ie/site/home). Dublin Bus (01/873-4222. www.dublinbus.ie/home). Gray Line Tours (01/670-8822. www.grayline.com).

Carriage Tours

Horse-drawn-carriage tours are available around Dublin and in Phoenix Park. For tours of the park, contact the Department of the Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht. Carriages can be hired at the Grafton Street corner of St. Stephen's Green, without prior reservations.

Information

Department of the Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht (01/661-3111).

Pub & Musical Tours

Dublin Tourism has a booklet to its self-guided "Rock 'n Stroll" Trail, which covers 16 sights with associations to such performers as Bob Geldof, Christy Moore, Sinéad O'Connor, and U2. Most of the sights are in the city center and Temple Bar. The Traditional Musical Pub Crawl begins at Oliver St. John Gogarty and moves on to other famous Temple Bar pubs. Led by two professional musicians who perform songs and tell the story of Irish music, the tour is given May-October, daily at 7:30 PM; the cost is EUR 9. Discover Dublin runs the Musical Bus every Friday and Saturday night, with musicians on board leading you on a pub crawl of Dublin's best rock-and-roll pubs. It costs EUR 22. The award-winning Viking Splash Tour is a big hit with kids. The amphibious ex-U.S. military vehicle takes your on a tour of the city center before launching onto the water down by the IFSC. Kids get a Viking helmet to wear and love terrifying native pedestrians with the "Viking Roar." An adult ticket is EUR 16-EUR 18.

Colm Quilligan arranges highly enjoyable evening tours of the literary pubs of Dublin, where "brain cells are replaced as quickly as they are drowned." The Dublin Literary Pub Crawl is a 122-page guide to those Dublin pubs with the greatest literary associations; it's widely available in the city's bookstores.

Information

Colm Quilligan (01/454-0228. www.dublinpubcrawl.com). Music Bus (01/475-3313). Oliver St. John Gogarty (57 Fleet St., Temple Bar. 01/671-1822). Traditional Musical Pub Crawl (Discover Dublin, 20 Lower Stephens St., Southside. 01/478-0191. www.discoverdublin.ie). Viking Splash (01/707-6000. www.vikingsplashtours.com).

Walking Tours

Historical Walking Tours of Dublin, run by Trinity College history graduate students, are excellent two-hour introductions to the city. The Bord Fáilte-approved tours take place from May to September, starting at the front gate of Trinity College, daily at 11 AM and 3 PM, with an extra tour on weekends at noon; tours are also available October-April, Friday-Sunday at noon. The cost is EUR 10.

Dublin Footsteps conducts a Georgian/Literary Walking Tour that leaves from the Grafton Street branch of Bewley's Oriental Café June-September, daily at 11; each tour lasts approximately two hours and costs EUR 9. Trinity Tours organizes walks of the Trinity College campus on weekends from March 17 (St. Patrick's Day) through mid-May and from mid-May to September daily. The half-hour tour costs EUR 7.60 and includes the Book of Kells exhibit; tours start at the college's main gate every 40 minutes from 10:15 AM. There are generally nine tours a day. The Zozimus Experience is an enjoyable walking tour of Dublin's medieval past, with a particular focus on the seedy, including great escapes, murders, and mythical happenings. Tours, which are led by a guide in costume, are by arrangement only and start at the main gate of Dublin Castle at 6:45 PM; the cost is EUR 10 per person. (Prepare yourself for a surprise.)

Information

Dublin Footsteps (01/496-0641. www.dublintourist.com). Historical Walking Tours of Dublin (01/878-0227. www.historicalinsights.ie). Trinity Tours (01/608-2320). Zozimus Experience (01/661-8646. www.zozimus.com).