Back in October I ventured to Dublin with my family to watch my mum run the Dublin marathon, i'd never been to Ireland so it was my first taster of an Irish city and I absolutely loved it. We stayed at The Dean Hotel, which i'd say is very similar to the likes of The Hoxton in London; a boutique hotel with bundles of charisma and personality.
The amazing treats on offer in the room, I couldn't resist buying the pick and mix sweets.
I stayed in one of the Punk Bunks, which can comfortably fit three people in as it is in a bunk bed format. The room had great quirky touches like interesting books to read and the best mini bar choices I think i've ever seen. If you get bored of your room then there's plenty to do in the hotel, there's a great bar downstairs and there's even a games room which you can book out to use.
In the evening along with all the other marathon runners we went to a restaurant called Fade Street Social. It's a tapas restaurant but not like any tapas restauarant that i've tried before, I can't recommend this restaurant enough, the flavour combinations were delicious and any 'posh' restaurant that serves chips and cheese is a winner in my book. We shared a combination of starters, including a really interesting dish that consisted of popcorn and chicken - sounds strange but trust me, it worked. For the main course I went for the chicken which was perfectly cooked and succulent.
I left Fade Street Social the night before pretty full, but I wasn't going to miss the breakfast at The Dean Hotel. We booked breakfast at the rooftop restaurant Sophie's, which not only has some great breakfast options (I was torn between the Irish breakfast and the pancakes) but being situated on the roof also has a pretty awesome view of Dublin. I didn't take a picture because it was a pretty cloudy day but you can see what I mean here.
We spent the last day of the trip getting in some well deserved shopping. All in all it was great trip and I'd definitely recommend staying at The Dean Hotel. My only slight downside to the hotel was that at night it is quite noisy as it's located in a popular clubbing area, but the hotel provides all rooms with earplugs so that was more than enough to help me get a good nights sleep. However it's definitely something I would consider thinking about if you're thinking of booking a nights stay.
Restaurant: http://www.fadestreetsocial.com/tapas-bar-dublin/menus-dublin/
Hotel: http://deandublin.ie/
