Ah, Scotland. How I’ll miss you.
Since we apparently wake up earlier than anyone else, we were able to walk around the castle with no one else in sight. We decided not to do a tour of the inside, mostly because I’m incapable of listening to tours and being very entertained by buildings, but the outside was quite impressive.
We were going to visit the Camera Obscura, but it wasn’t open yet (told you we wake up before anyone else), so we went on to The Elephant House again, right as they were opening, to relax and have some coffee, during which we talked ourselves out of Camera Obscura.
Afterward, we wandered back up to the castle again to start our Royal Mile excursion. We very quickly stopped though, as apparently the annual general assembly of the Church of Scotland was going on and they had a procession that blocked the way temporarily (side note: During this general assembly, they apparently decided to allow ministers to be in same-sex marriages. Go Church of Scotland!)
Once they passed on by, we made our way to St. Giles cathedral.
You are supposed to purchase a photo permit to take pictures of the inside, which I did not do, but I can tell you that it was incredibly beautiful and full of interesting historical details and memorials. Hope that will suffice for you.
The Royal Mile is filled with interesting things to see and do. You could easily spend a full day walking it.
We stopped in at the garden at Dunbar’s Close. “Closes” are narrow alleys, basically, but very medieval looking.
The garden is well-hidden, and we got to explore this peaceful little piece of nature in the middle of the city all by ourselves. The gardens were built to be like how they may have looked in the 17th century.
We also came across a pretty cemetery just off the Royal Mile.
On down the hill, we finally stopped at Holyrood Palace, which is the Queen’s residence while in Scotland. We watched as guests were allowed in or leaving and wondered about who these important people were. The guards were also fun to watch.
We then backtracked a bit to grab a bite and a pint at The World’s End Pub. Apparently it was named this way because of its situation in Edinburgh. Back when it was a walled city, The World’s End pub was right at the edge, where the world for the people who lived there stopped. The pub was really cool, and the food was about the best we had in Scotland.
We decided to head back to our flat for a bit, but noticed a market was going on outside, so we wandered around it for a while first, grabbing a vegan cupcake to eat.
We stopped in at the flat for a nap, but heard someone shouting outside on a platform. I spent the longest time trying to figure out what language he was shouting in, but then I realized it was just verra, verra heavily Scottish-accented English, and he was preaching to whoever would listen, wagging his Bible at everyone, and getting in shouting matches with anyone that didn’t like what he was saying.
After our bit of rest, we decided to go walk up Calton Hill for views of the city. I had wanted to hike Arthur’s Seat but had been told it would take half a day, and since we only had one day for the city, I didn’t want to spend that much time… But we had great views OF Arthur’s Seat from Calton Hill 😉
And the views of the city were pretty fantastic as well.
The whole Calton Hill area was actually pretty cool to explore.
We decided to get a bit out of the city center for dinner to see some other areas. We walked by the University of Edinburgh, got a bit lost in the rain, and ended up at another Indian restaurant for dinner, which never disappoints.
Since it was our last night in Scotland, we decided to go out for drinks just outside our door. We were surrounding by Hen Dos full of women in short skirts and high heels and Stag Dos full of very loud, rowdy men. It was quite the festive atmosphere. Cheers and “Woo!!!”s and laughter filled the area. A man in a Flash costume drank a shot through his costume because why wouldn’t you? We ended the night at The Last Drop, which is apparently named such because the Grassmarket area that it’s in used to be used for public executions… pretty morbid.
And that’s that.