The River Liffey
When the wind comes rushing in from the West, the smell of hops drifts across the city from the Guinness brewery, tempting Dubliners to stop for a pint of Ireland's favorite tipple.
It's famously difficult to resist the lure of Dublin's cute and cozy pubs, which dot every corner of its winding, rust-red streets.
Yet there's much more to Dublin than that. Surrounded by countryside of outstanding beauty, Ireland's capital curves around a wide natural bay split through the middle by the peaty waters of the River Liffey as it flows down from the Wicklow mountains.
The Liffey has been called "the Ganges of the literary world", owing to the capital's outsized literary clout. The city of 500,000 residents has produced James Joyce, Jonathan Swift and Oscar Wilde, none of whom are among the four other Dubliners who have won the Nobel Prize for literature.
Like its defining opus, James Joyce's Ulysses, Dublin is a mélange of carnality and fine art. At night, its streets can be a carnival of debauchery and drunkenness. But the city is also home to vibrant culture, an epic history and a legendarily friendly populace.
Along with some help from locals, anyone can get the most out of a 48-hour visit.
A Guinness beer brewery
Friday
7 pm - Choose a hotel in Dublin 1 or Dublin 2 postcodes, as near to the central boulevards of Grafton Street, Dame Street and O'Connell Street as possible. To ensure a decent night's sleep, avoid the Temple Bar area.
After checking in, head to The Bank bar on Dame Street. A former bank with a spectacular gilded interior, this is one of Dublin's jewels and a great place to acclimatize.
It's also one of the few Dublin bars spacious enough to have a free seat on a Friday evening.
8 pm - On your way to dinner, drop into The Porterhouse. A formidable challenge to the Guinness brand's grip on the Irish market, this family-owned microbrewery prides itself on producing an original set of beers without using the chemicals found in mass-produced products.
9 pm - Have a quiet, relaxing dinner at One Pico, a cozy restaurant just off St. Stephen's Green that is a consistent favorite with Dubliners, where star chef Eamonn O'Reilly whips up delicious dishes while managing to keep prices reasonable.
11 pm - After the show that takes place every evening, the Gaiety Theater transforms itself into a decadent, warren-like bar and nightclub.
The historic venue's backrooms, basements and lofts - in various states of splendid dilapidation - are filled with live bands and DJs and thrown open to partygoers until the wee hours of the next morning.