If you’ve been following along with… 2020… you know I am limited to basically only the United Kingdom when it comes to travel. Well lucky for me, there’s 4 countries in this country! Which means there is plenty of potential for little staycations, I also happen to love Scotland and would go there any time, even if other countries were accepting my American passport.
So, inspired by a need to get away from the screaming children on the playground below my flat, a cheap Marriott rate, and cheap train tickets, I booked a few days in Edinburgh. I’ve been to Edinburgh 3 times before this, but somehow I have hardly seen any of it. People would ask me for recommendations since I had been so many times, and I wouldn’t be able to come up with anything. I would see Edinburgh photos on Instagram all the time and nothing outside the Royal Mile looked familiar to me, so I had to fix that.
So, just like Harry Potter and his friends, I headed to King’s Cross and hopped on the train.
I arrived in Edinburgh around 1:30PM and rolled my suitcase the short walk (luckily down hill this time) to my trusty Marriott and checked in, then I set off to take on Edinburgh and all its stairs and hills. I was just going to go for a casual wander…I thought. The first set of stairs seemed harmless, then I turned the corner and found there was A LOT more stairs to come, but I felt like a quitter if I turned back, so I kept going. This was stupid, just be a quitter, its less sweaty when you’re a quitter.
After that hike up the stairs I decided I needed to head to Grassmarket to hit one of the first of the food stops on my list – Mary’s Milk Bar – for gelato. They make new flavors every day, but I went with the salted caramel, and HOLLLYYYY CRAP was it good. I had seen that there’s often a long queue outside of Mary’s and luckily I didn’t have to wait long, but I totally would wait in the long queue for this.
Now with my strength restored by gelato, I wandered a bit and made my way to Greyfriars Kirkyard. I put this on my list because I love old cemeteries, but while I was wandering through I remembered there’s a cemetery in Edinburgh where he who must not be named got his name. A quick Google search revealed it was, in fact, this graveyard. Let the hunt for Tom Riddle (Thomas Riddell) begin!
It’s not hard to find that grave, its the one with the completely trampled grass in front of it, sadly. The rest of the graveyard was more worth the visit.. except the not so brief encounter with a man I’m not entirely sure wasn’t a ghost… skip that part.
There is also a very good dog buried here, Greyfriars Bobby, he gets lots of sticks.
After the possible ghost/most likely just a weirdo encounter, I had my fill of people/spirits for the day, so I headed back to my hotel to get some food delivered and hang out in my PJs, as one does. Luckily, another place I had my eye on was on delivery. When I was looking up what to eat in Edinburgh, I came across one place, Los Cardos, multiple times for one thing – a haggis burrito. Call me crazy, but I was intrigued. I love to try haggis in pretty much any form except the OG. I fired up Deliveroo and my burrito was on the way, and you know what? It was delicious. I would recommend it for sure. I can’t say the same about Irn Bru though, sorry not sorry.
After a nice burrito coma, I was up the next day for more exploring and I headed in the direction of Circus Lane, which is just an extremely adorable and gorgeous little street that I would live on in a second.
From Circus Lane, I had my sights set on Dean Village, so I took a stroll by the Water of Leith and under the Dean Bridge to get there.
Then I arrived at this little cutie, Dean Village.
By this point I was hungry, and luckily another spot on my list, was just a short, straight up hill, walk from Dean Village! Sweating from the hill, I hit up Bross Bagels (West End) and got a Mile End bagel sandwich. Not only was the bagel sandwich delicious once I ate it, but they were killing the game with their social distancing setup.
I got my takeaway lunch and set off to find a nice place to eat it. Enter Princes Street Gardens.
I came for the bench to sit on and stayed a while for the views.
After the morning’s adventures, I wandered through a couple shops on Princes Street and got a coffee and while I was waiting for said coffee SAW THE GHOST/WEIRDO from the Graveyard then decided it was time for an afternoon break in the hotel room. The afternoon break basically turned into staying in except to go pick up one of the most epic meals of my stay.
While browsing the interwebs for food stops, I came upon tales of a wrap containing MAC and CHEESE and FRIED CHICKEN. I had to have it. So I headed to Scran Bistro to acquire said wrap. They have a good amount of outdoor seating, but you know how I like to eat in the comfort of my hotel room/pajamas, so I got it for takeaway. That meant I had to smell its glorious aroma the whole walk back to my hotel. Wow, the mac and cheese, the chicken, the chili jam. Scran is doing great things in this world. I love carbs.
Ugh, now I’m hungry.
Once again, I retired to my bed early because I knew I was going to get up early to conquer Arthur’s Seat and man, it conquered me instead. There’s a nice flat spot of grass that overlooks Edinburgh, and that’s where I meant to go, instead, I followed the signs and ended up at the summit of Arthur’s seat staring down at the place I meant to go. No regrets, it was gorgeous, but my knees and glutes were not fans of this “climb.”
I also finally encountered heather in the wild and I’m gonna go ahead and speak for the heather and say it was an exiting time for both of us.
And here’s the view of that nice flat spot that was probably much less terrifying to get to. Live and learn.
By the time I stumbled my way back down, it was still pretty early, so I planned to force my legs to keep walking around and get photos of all the places I wanted to go before the (very few) people came out and got in my way. I headed up the to the Royal Mile first to creep down the side streets/closes.
Then down one close to a little courtyard that holds the Writer’s Museum.
Then I went through to the street behind the Writers Museum to find the Divinity School at University of Edinburgh, which is basically Hogwarts.
From there, on my way up to the castle, I found another place I would happily live.
And the castle itself. I didn’t go inside this time, but one time when I was like 10 I went there and we saw Prince Charles drive out of the castle. Cool story Hansel.
It is crazy to see Edinburgh Castle with only this many people outside, it would normally be quite crowded. Such is life in 2020.
Somehow my legs were still going, so I made my way down to the terrace overlooking Victoria Street.
Next, I did something sort of lazy, sort of not. I walked a longer distance, to get around to the top of The Vennel for the viewpoint of Edinburgh Castle. I did this because to get to the top of this there is again A LOT of stairs involved and I was not about that life. But that view 😍.
Mary’s Milk Bar is right at the bottom of those stairs, but tragically it was not open yet, so I made my way up to the bottom of Victoria Street and snapped some photos before hitting my final destination of the morning for lunch.
My final destination was on Victoria Street. My friend told me I had to try Oink and she was not wrong. This place has a whole roast pig in the window (look away, vegans) and they basically stay open until 5:00 OR until the pig is gone, naturally. I got there right as they opened at 11:00 like a weirdo, and takeaway is the only option, which my legs and feet were very on board with taking it back to the hotel, so that was a plus. I got a glorious pulled pork sandwich with barbecue sauce and stuffing on it and a side of some of the best pork crackling I’ve ever tasted. This is a food blog now, welcome.
By the time I got back to my hotel room, I had walked about 8 miles, by 11:30AM so you can bet I got straight into bed after I ate that delicious sandwich and that is where I stayed for the afternoon. Actually, the only thing that got me out of bed the rest of the day was the final food item I needed to eat. An icon in Scotland, the fried Mars bar. Luckily for me, one of the recommended places to get one was right by my hotel, so I dragged myself out of bed once said place, Cafe Piccante, opened for the evening. This is the only way I ever want to eat a Mars bar, or any candy bar really, for the rest of my days; fried and with ice cream.
The next day, I went to a couple shops then continued to be lazy until I went to the train station. All the walking the days before really took it out of me, so I was not about to take on any more hills or stairs than I absolutely had to that last day. I covered a lot more ground and ate so many delicious things this time around. I’ve always loved Edinburgh, but I love it even more now. Anyone up there hiring?!
And now I leave you with live footage of me on one of the 4,327,081 rest stops I had to take on Arthur’s Seat. Not pictured: multiple old men who just breezed past me without a care in the world. Did I mention I love carbs?
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