Rough Guides Dublin Travel Guide

A new edition of the Dublin travel guide in the Rough Guides' Directions series is now out. The Directions guides are mostly city guides, though there are a few regional titles too. They are perfectly designed to fit into the pocket or purse, yet they contain everything you need to know about a city like Dublin – perfectly scaled-down versions of the main Rough Guides.

Directions guides have the same location maps as the Rough Guides, showing you in this case where Dublin's best hotels, restaurants, bars, cafés, and attractions are all located. In fact this Dublin city guide is very well blessed with maps. There are separate maps for each city area, all bright and clear and easy-to-read, while there are more maps for Dublin hotels, one a 2-page spread covering south of the river then a smaller one for the north side of the Liffey. In addition there are smaller-scale fold-out maps showing the areas of the city, and the area around Dublin, at front and back of the book. Full marks for mapping, definitely.

Full marks too for the colour photos that appear throughout this Dublin Directions guide. They really do make it an attractive book, helped by the glossy paper – they'll have to change the name to the Smooth Guides soon.

Dublin Travel Guide: The Authors

Good maps are important, but without good text, they're meaningless. How well do the authors know their subject? Well one of them, Geoff Wallis, lives in Ireland, is the co-author of The Rough Guide to Ireland, The Rough Guide to Irish Music, and The Rough Guide to Family Fun in Ireland – so he might just know what he's talking about. His co-author, Paul Gray, has been visiting Dublin since 1990, lived there for three years until 2004, and also co-wrote The Rough Guide to Ireland.

The authors have what you need when writing a good guidebook – enthusiasm. It's easy to become jaded when you're traveling all the time, and also when you're writing about the same destination in more than one book. But there's no sense of tiredness here. the authors are as enthusiastic about the cheapest little café as they are about the top tables, like Patrick Guilbaud, where they suggest sampling the good value lunchtime set menu.

Day Trips from Dublin

As well as all the sights within the city, and in the northern and southern outskirts, such as Howth, Dalkey, and Sandycove, there's a 12-page section of day trips within 50km (30 miles) or so of Dublin. Anyone visiting Dublin should also try to see some of these, as they include the beautiful Powerscourt Estate, Glendalough and the Wicklow Mountains, the robbery-prone Russborough House, and the awe-inspiring Neolithic graves at Newgrange and Knowth, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

If you read this book, you will definitely want to go to Dublin, and if you go to Dublin you should definitely read this book. It's one of the best compact Dublin travel guides you'll find.

The Verdict

For over 200 pages, and with this quality of production, the price seems hard to believe.You can only agree with Simon Calder, Travel Editor of Britain's Independent newspaper, who said: "A guide as direct as DIRECTIONS is exactly what I need when I'm visiting a city for the first time."

Practical Information

The Dublin guide in the Rough Guides Directions series costs $11.99 in the USA, $13.99 in Canada, and £6.99 in the UK. More details from the Rough Guides website.

Directions Dublin Travel Guide Cover

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