I began my three-week trip to Ireland, naturally enough, in Dublin, before renting a car and heading out to see the rest of the Emerald Isle. Here in the Irish capital, I caught an Oscar Wilde play, indulged in pints of Guinness, touched a real skeleton for luck, and came across three of the country’s best churches, one of the world’s best baptismal fonts, and one of the world’s most atmospheric restaurants. All of the latter were housed in some of the city’s finest structures that go back centuries and centuries and are just as beautiful today as they were then. Read about the top five buildings in Dublin >