Monday 28th & Tuesday 29th January
We spent a couple of days at Uncle Noel's enjoying being able to spend time with Auntie Carmel and Uncle Noel while we're over here.
And it snowed Tuesday night!!! It proper snowed! There was a beautiful white layer over everything!
Wednesday 30th January
We left Uncle Noel's early in the morning, carefully walking to the train station with Uncle Noel, being careful not to slip on the ice that had formed from the snow overnight. We had also repacked our bags and ditched some stuff the night before to make them much lighter for the next part of our journey.
We made it to Kings Cross station where our train to Edinburgh was leaving from, and yes it was obviously leaving from Platform 9 3/4.
We bought our meal deals, and what a deal they were, and headed to the train. We settled ourselves into a nice four seater table on the train and passed the hours playing Mario party, listening to Hamish & Andy, and admiring the country side.
From the moment we arrived in Edinburgh we fell in love with it (and were freezing). It is stunning. The architecture, the land, the atmosphere and the people. We made our way to drop off our bags at our accommodation and then went for a wonder around the area. We ended up at a lovely park with a (frozen) lake, and whether it was the excitement of being in Scotland or what, but we were both buzzing with joy.
We headed back to our accommodation at 2:30 to check in and settle into our room. It was SO CUTE!! It was exactly what we had imagined for a Scottish B&B.
We then rugged back up and headed into the city centre to have a look around. The architecture is absolutely amazing, the beautiful old gothic buildings, just works of art. We saw Scott Monument, and had a great view of Edinburgh castle from the city. It's just built into the rock face, amazing!
We then visited the art gallery which was full of period artwork, before heading back to our side of town.
What we didn't realise was the time and found that everywhere had closed for food! Oh no. We don't have cooking facilities in our accomodation either. A little trip to Tesco's and we have ourselves a couple of packets of "just add boiling water" soups and pastas to make in a mug with the kettle in our room. How cozy on a freezing night in Scotland! We then conked out soon after from our early start this morning.
Thursday 31st January
Today was probably one of my favourite days. We started the day with a picnic breakfast on the steps under Scott Monument, with the sun on our faces and a view of Edinburgh Castle.
After our little picnic we headed out on foot across and out of the city to Holyrood Park to hike up Arthur's Seat, an ancient volcano!
On the way up we spotted some old ruins, so detoured and clambered over rocks to go and check it out. It turns out it was the remains of an old 15th century medieval chapel, St Anthony's Chapel.
It was a a gorgeous day with not a cloud in the sky, and the climb up was beautiful and so much fun to be exploring.
We made it to the top!! The last part of the climb was so icy and slippery, but so satisfying to make it! The view was amazing!! We could see the rest of the park below us, the city, and Edinburgh Castle.
It was also fascinating to see a thick fog quickly rolling over the city and towards us! We ended up not being able to see anything but white until it just as quickly blew out again!
The climb down was much harder than coming up due to the ice, and Sam fell victim (literally fell) to it, slipping his way down more than once! And so began the tragedy of Sam's left knee, little did we know it would give him grief for the next month!
After we had made our way back down, we headed back towards the city to Calton Hill which has a strange collection of neoclassical monuments on the top of it, as well as an observatory.
We then ended up back in the city centre and shared a nacho sub from subway for lunch, all I can say is don't knock it till you try it, it works.
After lunch we wondered into Old Town which just felt Scottish in every sense, as we walked through cute old cobblestoned streets, we could hear bagpipes playing and the whole place felt alive!
We then stopped in at "The Elephant House" Cafe where JK Rowling wrote the Harry Potter books, and had a hot chocolate in the back room where she is said to have sat, chatting the afternoon away until sunset, with views of Edinburgh Castle in the background.
A while later we wondered back through the Old Town streets and stumbled across what can only be described as the real life Diagon Alley, with multiple Harry Potter shops either side of the street (which of course we spent a good while meandering through).
We eventually made our way back to our side of town, wandering in and out of shops on our way (mostly as a means to not freeze), before heading out for dinner.
Dinner was delish! We went to the cutest PizzaExpress, that was pretty much in a mini castle just down the road from our accommodation. We both had the most amazing pizzas (and it helped that we were starving from our big day), and of course, got it for a bargain, that's right ya girl had a two for one coupon!
Safe to say we slept well after such an amazing day.
Friday 1st February
We set out with a meal deal lunch packed in the backpack and cameras in hand to the botanic gardens, and had such a wonderful day walking through the gardens and watching the different animals go about their business.
We met a man who saw us taking photos and started talking to us about photography and Scotland and let us experiment with his crystal photography ball. It was really cool to talk to a local.
We wandered up through Old Town to Edinburgh Castle to have a look around and on our way back down as night fell it started to snow!!! It was perfect! Bag pipes were playing, the snow was falling (it was freezing), and it was beautiful and just felt magical! It totally topped off our experience of Edinburgh!
Saturday 2nd February
Goodbye Edinburgh and hello Inverness! We trekked up to Inverness by bus, ready for a day of Nessie hunting tomorrow!
We arrived into town in the evening and were very pleasantly surprised with our accommodation! Another cute bargain B&B that exceeded our expectations, and perfect for being cozy in the cold Scottish winter.
We had a little wander around the town, and then headed to a good old Wetherspoons pub for, you guessed it, a bargain dinner.
Sunday 3rd February
We enjoyed our complimentary buffet breakfast at the B&B before leaving to join our Lochness Tour. When we arrived at the bus, the guide informed us that there was only three of us on the tour today! Awesome! After waiting for a while it was apparent that the other person wasn't going to show, so we headed off on our now private tour!!
It was such a special day! First up was our boat ride on Loch Ness!! It was so cool to be on Loch Ness! It was beautiful, and there were only two other people on the boat! So we were running around all over the place trying to see if we could find Nessie. We also passed Urquhart Castle on our little boat cruise.
The guide was absolutely brilliant in tailoring and adjusting the tour for just the two of us. Making lots of stops around the Loch, sharing stories with us and learning about the history of the area, and life in Scotland on the whole. We had packed our own lunch so rather than stopping in a small town for an hour for a restaurant, he took us on extra little walks at different stops through forests and around the Loch.
We then took a road less travelled and started to wind and climb through beautiful country side.
We spotted plenty of deer in the fields and forests along the drive!
We then happened upon an amazing frozen lake, which the guide kindly detoured for us to get out and have a look!
It was an amazing tour and a spectacular day that we topped off by having a Scottish pie with beans and chips at the Wetherspoons for dinner before returning to our cozy B&B.
Monday 4th February
We enjoyed our buffet breakfast before hopping on the bus and trekking back to Edinburgh.
We checked into our B&B (we returned to the same one we stayed in before) and the guy kindly upgraded us to the family suite with a private bathroom!!
We then headed across the city to go into Edinburgh Castle. It was really cool inside and well worth going in. It was massive inside the walls and had it's own little roads! We visited the old prisons, museum sections and saw the crown jewels! We even walked through Mary Queen of Scots bedroom and where she gave birth, the armoury and impressive dining rooms!
There was also free whisky tasting in the shop, so of course we had to give that a try.
We headed back across the city, bought some ready made Shepherds pie from the grocery store and found a microwave in the reception that we were able to use to have a warm meal before catching a few hours sleep (4 to be exact) before our early flight to Switzerland!
Edinburgh is an amazing city that we both absolutely fell in love with!
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