EDINBURGH

I’d been to the other side of the world but spent less than 24 hours in Scotland back in 2000 so a visit to Edinburgh was long overdue. It was a simple 3 night trip and flying instead of a 6 hour each way train ride. I went straight after work checking into the hostel right in the center of the old town around 7pm. I walked around, ate some dodgy chips and curry then had a couple of beers in the hostel bar. Admittedly I was tired and was asleep well before midnight.

The following morning I got the hop on hop off bus and did a complete lap of the city using it to get ideas for what to do later that weekend. I followed that with a guided walking tour from the hostel. Unlike others I went on our guide was not that good and we did long spells of walking without him actually telling us everything.

More sleep was needed before I did anything else that day, that evening I got talking to several other solo travellers in the bar and we ended up going out. After a bit of discussion we ended up in a club called the Hive. I have to admit I was a bit nervous drinking in Scotland all it was going to take was one English hating drunken idiot to ruin my evening and that included getting past the bouncers. I was with a couple of Americans, an Australian and another Scot so I managed to get away with it and despite some of the music being awful it was not a bad night.

The late night did ruin my plan to get to Edinburgh castle which was only 5 minutes walk from the hostel first thing in the morning. I arrived at 10:30 and ended up waiting for an hour to get in while it was raining. A lot of it was a series of mini museums and I ended up spending around 2 hours before I was too cold.

I was planning to go round Holyrood park on the Monday but went straight after the Castle as there was a gap in the bad weather. It was nice to have a couple of hours out of the city but I didn’t venture as far as I would have liked to. I was going to visit dynamic earth but when I arrived it was full of kids so I didn’t bother.

Met up with the group from the previous night in the hostel bar, everyone was feeling the aftereffects of the previous night so we were not going out, I wouldn’t have minded going for a couple but it wasn’t happening.

On the monday my flight wasn’t until 6 in the evening so I had time to do the Scotch Whiskey experience. I liked the tour and got a bottle at the end of it, I didn’t pay the nearly 30,000 pound for the most expensive bottle.

Last stop was the national museum which was free and helped pass the final afternoon, overall it was a good weekend.