It’s been a while since I’ve updated my blog, but I want to continue sharing my experience. After the weekend in London. my travel mates and I headed to Edinburg. We decided to go by train, which took about 4-5 hours. I really like traveling by train becuase it’s comfortable, it’s fun to look out the window, and you don’t have to worry about traffic or parking! The best part about the train ride was when a train attendant came by to collect trash and said “That’s great, that’s lovely” when people handed her their garbage.
When we arrived in Edinburg, we checked into our prospective lodgings. For this city, I also stayed in a hostel. This time it was the Castle Rock hostel which was right across from the Castle of Edinburg and close to the Royal Mile. The staff seemed friendly and the hostel, although not the most new and updated, was of good quality. I actually stayed in a room that had had 12 beds! Not all of them were full, but it was the largest hostel room I’ve ever stayed in. The rooms in the hostel also had themes like rock bands, types of underwear, and mine which was characters from the Mr. Men Little Miss cartoon books. Each bed had a name and the one I was assigned to was “Mr. Tickle.”
After I was settled I decided to go out for a walk to explore the area while I waited for the other girls to get settled into their hotel. Edinburg is a really cool city, especially because of its old architecture. Not long into my walk I hard the sound of bagpipes and I saw a man dressed in a kilt and everything. Pretty stereotypical, but Edinburg is a pretty touristy city, at least the part where I stayed was. I don’t remember where we ate dinner the first night, but it was at a tavern of sorts. There are lots of pubs and taverns there that have good food, but all kind of blend together after a while. I had some vegetarian sausage and potatoes that night. I ate a lot of potatoes while in the U.K.
The next day Devon and Annalie went on an Outlander tour, so Virginia and I decided to stay nearby and hike Arthur’s Seat, which is a huge hill at the edge of the city. There was an easy path and a more challenging path, which we decided to take. It felt good to walk uphill. Even though I walked a lot living in Europe, I wasn’t climbing mountains every day so I did have to take a couple of breaks. When we got to the top, it was super windy, but absolutely beautiful. We could see the whole city up there and we had a lot of fun taking pictures. There weren’t just tourists like us there, there were also locals getting their daily exercise. When I was taking some photos of Virginia there was even one man who came up out of no where climbing and running up some rocks. We were impressed.
After our hike we treated our selves to some fish and chips, vegetarian haggis, and cider of course! I didn’t have any beer or even whiskey while in England and Scotland. I’m just not accustomed to it after living in wine country, okay… Later we checked out the Primark and met back up with the others. For dinner that night we went to Deacon Brodie’s tavern. I had a veggie burger. I was worried that in Scotland, my veggie options would be limited, but there was always something I could eat!
The last day there we decided to go to the Castle of Edinburg in the morning. It was super windy that day, but it was fun walking around the castle and learning some history. In the afternoon we walked around the Royal Mile, a long famous street in Edinburg with lots of shops and restaurants. For lunch we stopped in at The Elephant House, which is famous for being the place where J.K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter. I had some vegetarian chili and a fruity black tea. Afterwards we explored a street that inspired Diagon Alley form the series, and we even went into some Harry Potter themed gift shops.
While we were there, we all got jewelry with a thistle on it, which is a symbol of Scotland. I got some lovely silver earrings and a matching ring,with tiny purple stones. I didn’t get too many souvenirs on this trip because, things in the U.K. are expensive and I didn’t have a lot of room in my luggage becuase I flew on a discount airline. I do think something like jewelry is a much better souvenir than a t-shirt becuase it’s smaller, classier, and it will last a lot longer. Do you have a favorite type of souvenir?
For my last dinner in Edinburg, I ate alone becuase the others we tired. I decided to try this little Thai place near my hostel and I had some Pad Thai with tofu. It was so good! There weren’t any Thai places near me in France so it was good to have something different. The next morning we caught another train to our last city of the trip: Inverness.
Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for the next post to see if I find the Loch Ness Monster!
– Cam
Baguettes and Bicyclettes 