?>
Main image
23rd June
2011
written by Hazel

So sorry to be so far behind in our adventures. We’ve had a wonderful time seeing friends and family and haven’t had much time for blogging. But, that does mean that we have lots of wonderful days to post about!

We arrived in Edinburgh after one of the nicest (read: least bumpy) flights ever. There was one slight mishap on the getting to the airport in Madrid. I woke up, in a panic that I had slept through my alarm, roused Justin and very sleepily hustled us out of the hostel, only to find out that my alarm hadn’t even gone off yet! We were about two hours earlier to the airport than we needed to be. But I suppose that’s better than two hours late.

When we got to the customs in Edinburgh it was funny because all of the non-EU people in line in front of us were having to answer bunches of questions, but the guy took one look at my passport and said, “Visiting the family, eh?” and we said, “yes,” and he said, “Must be done, go on then.”  So that was easy.

We had a really wonderful time in Scotland.  The weather was completely crazy, but it worked out ok.  Most days we had some combination of warm sun, pouring rain, and overcast skies with a little wind thrown in for good measure.

One of the best things we did in Edinburgh was the free walking tour (and I just found out from their website that they do these tours in a bunch of other European cities as well, so we’ll probably check that out in the future).  The tour was several hours long and took us past most of the places of interest.  This meant we could get lots of good pictures and check out where we might want to go later.  The guide was really entertaining with lots of dubious stories history about the city.  Highly recommended as a way to get a feel for the city and see the outside of all the sights.  I’m including some photo highlights, but as usual, click through for many more.

Edinburgh Cathedral

Edinburgh Cathedral

Looking up the "Royal Mile"

Looking up the "Royal Mile"

Edinburgh Castle

Edinburgh Castle

 

We stayed in a really good hostel there as well.  It’s called Argyll Backpackers and was exactly the type of place we like to stay.  The walk into town took about 10 minutes and went through a park, there were two kitchens which were probably better equipped than most houses, free tea and coffee, very clean.  Really, really good!  I even managed to sleep for about 14 hours uninterrupted there and was very glad for that – pretty unusual for an 8 person dorm room.

Edinburgh has something which I haven’t seen anywhere else, but that I think is genius.  Baked potato shops!  They work just like Subway but instead of sandwiches you get a baked potato.  My favorite is with baked beans and cheddar, but you can have all different kinds.

Justin enjoys a tuna and sweetcorn potato

Justin enjoys a tuna and sweetcorn potato

I was surprised by how many Harry Potter references we heard while there, but once I started looking out for it I could see that the town probably had a strong influence on the books.  We went past the cafe where the books were written every day on our way into town.  There is a famous school right next to it with four “houses” and four towers.  There is a long history of suspicions of witchery with pubs and things with witchy names.  Kind of cool.

Witchy!

Witchy!

Edinburgh is also full of court related puns.  I’m not sure why this is, so if anyone cares to enlighten me I’d love to know.  Here are two of my favorite.

On a pub

On a pub

A hotel...

A hotel...

Cracked me up.

1 Comment

  1. Cynthia
    23/06/2011

    No wonder we didn’t see you on the metro on our way to the airport! Can’t wait to visit this place one day.

Leave a Reply

*