Dublin

The white S-shaped suspension footbridge connects Riverside Crossing Park on the east bank to Historic Dublin on the west, just north of the Bridge Street crossing. It is about 760 feet long, lit at night, and takes four minutes to walk. Do it at sunset with the river below and finish with a drink on either bank.

The trailhead is off North High Street just north of Bridge Street, behind the shops in Historic Dublin — an easy sign to miss. A short wooded gorge trail with viewing platforms above two waterfalls, best after rain and in April before the leaves fill in. Free, open dawn to dusk, twenty minutes round trip.

Two hundred and something concrete ears of corn — 109 of them, each over six feet tall — planted in rows at Frantz Road and Rings Road. It is a serious public artwork commemorating the farmland this development replaced, and it looks completely absurd, which is why everyone stops. Free, always open, five minutes off I-270.

Seventy-three-seventy-seven Riverside Drive. A twelve-foot limestone portrait head of the Wyandot chief, built into the hillside above the Scioto by Ralph Helmick. Climb the steps behind it for the view over the valley. The park below has an amphitheatre used for free summer concerts and plenty of shaded picnic tables.

Bridge Street and North High Street west of the river: Brazenhead for the Irish pub side, plus bakeries, a butcher and a handful of independents in nineteenth-century limestone buildings. Mains run $18 to $32. It empties out by ten on weeknights, which is either the charm or the problem depending on your plans.

Coffman Park hosts the Dublin Irish Festival on the first weekend of August — seven stages, tens of thousands of people, tickets in the $15 to $25 range in advance. It is genuinely well run and genuinely enormous. Book accommodation months out or stay 20 minutes away and drive in early.

Dublin is a driving town and you should treat it as one. From the airport allow 30 to 35 minutes and $45 to $55 by rideshare; from Upper Arlington it is 15 to 20 minutes north on Riverside Drive, which is the pretty route, or Sawmill Road, which is the fast-then-slow one. I-270 loops the eastern edge with exits at Tuttle Crossing, Frantz Road and Sawmill. COTA does serve Dublin, but the service is sparse, weekday-weighted and built for commuters rather than visitors — do not plan an evening around it. Once parked at Bridge Park, the footbridge, restaurants and historic village are all within a ten-minute walk, and the garages there are free for the first few hours.

It is played at Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin, Jack Nicklaus's own course, usually in the first full week of June. That week every hotel from Dublin through Hilliard and Upper Arlington sells out, rates triple to $300 to $450, and four-night minimums are common. If you are not there for the golf, move your trip by a fortnight and save several hundred dollars.

Bridge Park if you want to walk to dinner, a rooftop bar and a cinema, and you accept it is all brand new — $150 to $230 a night. Historic Dublin has the character but almost no rooms. If money matters more than atmosphere, the Frantz Road and Tuttle Crossing chains at $99 to $145 are ten minutes' drive from both.

Not easily. COTA's Dublin services are thin and geared to weekday commuting, so a visitor trip usually means a change and a long wait. A rideshare between Tremont Center and Historic Dublin runs roughly $20 to $28 and takes 15 to 20 minutes. Cyclists can do it on Riverside Drive, but the traffic is fast and the shoulder inconsistent.

Riverside Crossing Park and the Dublin Link bridge are free and take an hour happily. Indian Run Falls is a short, safe gorge walk. Scioto Park has an amphitheatre, picnic grounds and the Leatherlips sculpture to climb around behind. Add the Field of Corn for the photograph, and you have a full day without paying admission anywhere.