Day 38 - Edinburgh

After a fantastic night’s sleep Carly & I enjoyed our gourmet breakfast (gotta love the Hilton!) and then headed off to investigate how to get to Edinburgh by train. It was very easy in the end. We walked for about 20 minutes, bought our tickets and at 10am we were on the express train headed for Edinburgh. The weather was again very kind to us – no rain, slightly overcast and about 6°. I can honestly say I never thought I would describe 6° as mild but after Austria and Switzerland it doesn’t seem too bad!

 

It was a very pleasant journey of about 50 minutes flying through the lush green Scottish countryside. We had reached Edinburgh Waverley Station by 10.50am and were ready to take the town by storm. After stopping at the tourist information kiosk for a map and some advice, we hot footed it up some stairs and a pretty steep hill to find ourselves at the famed Edinburgh Castle. The views were amazing and Carly and I spent ages trying to take a “selfie” photo that included the castle in the background…in the end we gave up, though you can sort of see a bit in the corner of the photo!

 

 

 

Carly is a bit over castles so we decided not to pay the £15 entry fee and just admired it from the outside. We then walked down the Royal Mile towards Hollyrood Palace, stopping at just about every souvenir shop on the way (and if you’ve been there you will agree that’s some serious shopping). We admired the architecture, the occasional church and the odd statue or monument as we continued down through the Old Town. We stopped at a pub for lunch where Carly had an awesome beef stew – check it out!

 

This was but a brief respite and we were back out in the cold continuing on our walk to the palace. We circled the grounds, took a few photos and headed back up towards the shops – Carly is over palaces too so we admired it from afar only.

 

It was then over to the New Town and some serious shops that all seem to be beautifully decorated for Christmas. By 3pm and almost 4 hours of walking by mutual consent we decided to head back to the station for our return journey. The trains run every 15 minutes so we had only a few minutes to wait before we were heading back to Glasgow – a great service.

 

We couldn’t pass up the opportunity to call in to the Christmas Markets on the way back to the hotel and grabbed some fudge and two of the nicest coconut macaroons you have ever tasted – Carly says she has to go back tomorrow to get more. We were in our room by 5pm where we watched a strange game show called The Chase, went downstairs for a pizza in the bar, and then chilled out, resting our tired tootsies.

We are meeting David, (my friend from work), and his family, tomorrow for lunch which should be really good so I’m quite excited to see them again. We are also planning to explore Glasgow a little further.