Edinburgh

We spent 4 nights in Edinburgh, split over two weekends. Our first hostel was Argyle Place Backpackers which was about a 10min walk from the heart of Edinburgh. The hostel was great, big dorm rooms with only 6 beds, lots of (working) bathrooms, 2 kitchens and a lounge and sun room. Our first night we spent a couple of hours chatting to our roommates and drinking the nice coffee. We then headed to the supermarket, about a 10-minute walk. As we returned from the shops, a flash flood hit, we were drenched and the roads were flooding. After a shower and some new clothes we cooked a hearty stew in the oven (Damien has been craving oven cooked food) and drank French wine.

The next morning we walked from the hostel through the meadows to Holyrood Park and climbed up Arthur’s Seat. This had great 360 deg views of Edinburgh. We wandered down the opposite side of the hill and made our way to town up High St (the Royal Mile). The Royal Mile is basically a strip of shops, restaurants and bars. The city was amazing, so many nice old buildings but still parks around to make it feel a bit nicer. After walking all day we retired early with a bottle of red from a winery in California we actually visited, cheaper here! Australian wine is actually cheaper over here also, which is pretty disgraceful I reckon, too much tax back home! The following morning we headed off on a 5-day tour of the highlands.

When we returned from the tour we were staying at Castle Rock hostel, as the Argyle Place was booked out. This hostel was much bigger, still had some nice lounge area’s, more beds in the dorms. They also had a breakfast Nazi who tried to charge us for eating our own corn flakes in the hostel!

On the Saturday we had to choose between going to the Highland games, which were in town or visiting the Edinburgh Castle. Both were quite expensive, but we decided to go to the Castle. This was quite interesting we had an audio tour, which you probably don’t need. There was a war memorial, old church, crown jewels, museums, dog cemetery and old prison cells.

After a coffee in the hostel and packing our bags up a bit, we headed to the Castle Arms Pub, just down from the hostel. This had a nice balcony over the city out the back where we had a few beers and a haggis for dinner. The pub was good with discounts for backpackers and a girl we met in the hostel working in the bar. After dinner we headed out onto the street to watch the homecoming parade. This was clans of highlanders all parading in their tartan and kilts, like a big reunion happening in town. People had come from all over the world including an American couple from our tour, but we must have missed them, as we didn’t see them in the parade. Next morning we rushed down to the train station, running a bit late, we nearly missed our train. After finding out which platform we had to go to, we found the train with about 3 minutes to spare. This was luckily as we had to transfer trains on our way to Cardiff.