Discovering the United Kingdom Part II: Edinburgh, Scotland

My husband and I had the wonderful opportunity to travel in Europe for a month this June. The first part of the trip was in the United Kingdom (UK). Our full itinerary and information about Bath and Manchester can be found here. Today, I’m going to talk about my favorite part of the UK trip: Edinburgh, Scotland! Who wouldn’t love a country that’s made the unicorn one of its official animals?

Edinburgh, Scotland is Beautiful

I don’t think I’ve ever stepped foot into a country and been immediately as wowed by the architecture as I was when we first got to Edinburgh. From the train station, to the narrow streets of downtown, Edinburgh is cute, cute, cute! You have very old, windy cobblestone streets with stone buildings everywhere and, atop the dormant volcano in the center of town, a honest-to-goodness castle (Edinburgh Castle) overlooking everything. Yes, there are a lot of stairs to get from the train station to the heart of the city, but the walk is filled with wonder and beauty. And the streets really are filled with the sound of bagpipes. At least, in the tourist areas where there are plenty of street performers.

What a gorgeous place, the kind that you think of when you think of traveling in Europe.

The Royal Mile

Our AirBNB had a view of Edinburgh Castle and was quite close to the main tourist attraction, a one-mile stretch of road called “The Royal Mile“. It’s named as such because it starts at the entrance to Edinburgh Castle and finishes at Holyroodhouse Palace, the place where the royals still stay when they visit Scotland.

Along the Royal Mile, you’ll see a cathedral, churches, pubs, shops galore, an example of the “skyscrapers” they had in the 16th century, and, my favorite, the Writer’s Museum featuring three famous Scottish artists: Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott, and Robert Louis Stevenson. We weren’t familiar with Robert Burns’ work before the visit, but he was a poet who had quite the sense of humor. Just check out his poem entitled, Address to a Haggis, and you’ll see what I mean. The Scottish seem to all have a sense of humor about things too. There were marvelous shops with clever names and pubs galore (maybe the source of the humor??).

The Royal Mile is well-worth the walk, though it gets very crowded with tourists, so it’s best to go early in the day. At the very end, near the palace, you have the Scottish parliament building and a beautiful view of Arthur’s Seat. You can climb Arthur’s Seat to get an amazing view of the city. It was quite rainy when we were visiting, so we skipped the hike, but it’ll be the first thing I do when we return.

Edinburgh Castle

We took a tour of Edinburgh Castle in the rain and we still had an amazing time! Our guide was fantastic and the stories behind the castle were incredibly interesting. From the castle you have a nice view of the city. Within the castle walls you can see the National War Memorial (one of the most beautiful I’ve seen), the Scottish Crown Jewels, and a plethora of rooms and museums including the room where Mary Queen of Scot gave birth to her son James and an exhibit on prisoners of war. You should purchase tickets ahead of time as I noticed a sign outside both days we were there saying the tickets were sold out for the day.

Afternoon Tea at The Balmoral Hotel

One of the top two things we did on our entire trip to Europe was to have tea at the Balmoral Hotel. Tea takes place in the incredibly fancy Palm Court complete with a harpist playing from the balcony. I have been to a lot of teas in my time, but this one is hands-down my favorite. The ambiance is just not-to-miss!

Why did we end up doing tea here instead of somewhere in London? Well, I found out that the Balmoral is where JK Rowling finished the final book in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. She was too famous to work in cafes by this point and her regular life was too distracting at home, so she upped her productivity by hiding is the Balmoral Hotel. I wanted to spend the night there, but at well over $1000/night it was quite a bit above my price range. So, we settled for tea and I am so glad we did. This was my husband’s first time having a proper afternoon tea and he loved it. I did too.

Weather

The weather all weekend was cloudy and rainy. Despite it being June, it was wet almost the whole time we were in the UK. Residents there are so sweet. We had many of them apologize for the weather (as if it’s their fault) and tell us that unfortunately this is pretty normal. We didn’t mind at all. Bad weather meant that we could spend more time inside the establishments that make Scotland famous: pubs!!

Pub Life in Edinburgh

We tried to stop into as many pubs as we could, but there is a limit to how many pints a person can have in one weekend (shocking, I know). We found two favorites. First, we stopped into Cloisters Bar, which is located in an old church parsonage building. The clientele here seemed more local and the staff were quite friendly. They had a good amount of food options as well as beers.

Then, there is a the uber-touristy pub called the “Wee Pub“, the smallest pub in Scotland. It is now connected to a larger bar, Biddy Mulligan’s, but you can grab your pint and go sit in the very cute Wee Pub. Here, we met a man from London who was dog sitting for his friends and we had a very interesting conversation about American politics and perhaps the fall of our great nation into another civil war. It was incredibly eye-opening to hear what the rest of the world thinks is going to happen here in the US, I’ll tell you that.

One more word on the food in Scotland. Haggis is actually pretty good. It’s included with any Full Scottish Breakfast and we had three wonderful breakfast places right across the street from our AirBNB in the Grassmarket area. Do give it a shot!

We’ll Be Back to Edinburgh

In less than an hour after arriving, we decided to return to Scotland for a longer trip. We kept hearing about other places we’d really like to see: castles galore, Stirling’s Wallace Monument, Isle of Skye, and Loch Ness, of course. So, no doubt we’ll be back and the Highlands will certainly be on our itinerary!