Sometimes you need to inject a little bit of spice into your relationships to keep the love burning hot. No, we’re not talking about your significant other, but your hometown. We can all fall into a rut of heading for the same cafes, the same bars, and the same venues. Give our recommendations a try to start seeing your city through a new set of eyes.

1) Stay in a concept hotel Book yourself in a hip hotel in a part of town you’re not familiar with. Plenty of hotels have wacky rooms, fun art, and cool concepts, all of which are normally invisible to locals. For bonus points, don’t tell the concierge where you live… see where their recommendations take you!

Back in the day when I was still living in Amsterdam as a student, I used to work in O’ Donnell’s Irish bar for very mean Irish owner Seamus, so mean in fact that he rented the apartment across the road from the bar so he could watch through binoculars if we were drinking in the bar after work. Hell, we were but that certainly put a stop to that!

In any case its where I met a lot of Irish. Aye! Shane's, Sean's, Connor's & Cailin's all trooped over from Belfast & Dublin for the summer to work for grumpy old Seamus pulling beers, clearing tables and post-shift-drinking like, well.. the Irish.. And however much I thought I knew all the good stuff going on in the city I didn't. ‘Cos these guys did..

The little gigs that were on, the wee hidden clubs behind unmarked doors and the bars that stayed open way past their legal closing time, hidden behind heavy velvet curtains with the lights turned down low..