A Day (and a bit) in Edinburgh

Old Scottish pounds

Our first (and only) day in Edinburgh was wet, wet, wet! It started raining before we had even woken up, and despite hopes to the contrary, continued all day. We took the bus into Edinburgh central where we started our walking tour of the city.

After a quick stop past the café where JK Rowling started writing the Harry Potter series, the Bear and I found a lovely little café called Hula where we had a delicious breakfast and made plans for the rest of our day.

Our first site of interest was a gallery just up the road (and hill) from the café. We can remember neither the name of the gallery nor the show; which is somewhat ironic seeing as it had to do with forgotten places or something of the like. I also don't think I would recommend it - the art was of wonderful quality and style, but the subject matter left some to be wanting.

Rain at the castle

Our second destination was Edinburgh Castle; this place I can highly recommend! We started our explorations with a free walking tour of the different buildings. All outside. All in the rain. This was followed by a visit to the Crown Jewels of Scotland, as well as the Stone of Destiny. The exhibition surrounding these items was interesting and very dynamic, it is definitely worth seeing! Walking into the room where the jewels were kept was breathtaking. It took me a moment to realise I wasn't looking at replicas but the real things - daft, I know, but there was so much information to mull over as we made our way to the treasury room that I, at first, hadn't realised I had walked into it!

This was followed by a tour of the royal apartments, then the Great Hall. Where we met "Queen Margaret" who told us all about her life in Scotland, as well as her legacy. We later visited her chapel which was built in her honour by her son and was the only building at the castle left standing after Robert the Bruce's forces came knocking; this by his direct order. It is also the oldest building in Edinburgh.

After these rooms we payed our respects at the Edinburgh War Memorial, another awe inspiring building full of regiments' banners, carvings, stained glass and books of the dead. We will remember them.

We also stopped by the rather large cannon that I took to calling "Big Bertha" - real name "Mons Meg". It takes huge cannon balls and has only been fired once, I believe. Afterwards we visited the prison of the castle, mostly it used to hold prisoners of war during the American Civil War and beyond.

Finally, we had enough of the rain and went to find some dinner, though not before a spot of shopping.

Tasty pub grub

We ate at Deacon Brodie on the Royal Mile where we sampled some of the local delicacy - haggis - and filled our tumms with hot pub grub; this was just what we needed after a day of trekking through the rain, and to prepare us for the walk back to the bus and, thus, "home".

The next morning we got up relatively early so we could eat and be on our way. We made sure to grab a Geocache en route, proceeded to get lost in Edinburgh (even with a Sat Nav) and, eventually - after driving the same stretch of road four times - were on the road towards The Lake District!

More Sat Nav mistakes and glorious sunshine (finally!) in our next entry.

~Crown

Enjoying the haggis, neeps and tatties