Location: Edinburgh, Scotland
Date: October 2015
Edinburgh in a day and on a budget! Great place to visit! My friend Anna and I took a flight from London City Airport to Edinburgh. The flight took about 1 hr and cost about £90 each, surprisingly the cost at the time of booking was about the same price as the train. Anna had never visited Scotland before and as this was a short trip we wanted to make the most of it. When we touched down, we made our way to the airport bus. We paid £4.50 each for the single journey. We did not realise that there is now a tram that runs from the Airport and The city centre, this costs £5.
The weather was a typically Scottish rainy grey day, but we didn't let that dampen our spirits. We decided to have lunch first as I knew we had a day of wandering around hilly Edinburgh. We got off on George Street and met with my sister. Anna is vegetarian so my sister took us to a restaurant just off George Street called
Hendersons; a vegetarian and vegan restaurant and there was a great selection of food. The servers were friendly and since we were in Scotland we made Anna try the vegetarian haggis. I also had the vegetarian haggis and it was served with mashed potatoes and a choice of two salads. It tasted good and was very filling but I would not say that it tasted that much like haggis. My sister had a vegetarian pizza with a side salad. Each meal was about £7. As we left we took a side street and we transported back in time. Edinburgh turned into a film set that was supposed to be London back in the early 19th Century. Extras were dressed up and hiding away from the rain. We said our goodbyes to my sister and set off to see the rest of Edinburgh. It was a little chilly so our first stop was grabbing a hot chocolate from
Hotel Cholcolat (about £3).
I attended Edinburgh University, however it has been many years since I have been back and got to see Edinburgh from the eyes of someone who had never been before. I became the tour guide. We started by stopping on Princes Street to take a picture of the castle. The Castle sits on top of a geographical formation known as a Crag and Tail. The Crag is difficult to climb and would have provided a great view of the oncoming enemy.
The Edinburgh Castle itself does not look like one you would imagine from old fairytales. It looks more like a barracks and thats pretty much what it was used for. We entered Princess Street gardens and walked towards The Mound. Some gruesome history for you,
Princes Street Gardens used to be a lake and back in the days of being accused of witch craft, they would throw the accused into the lake. If they floated they were a witch and if the drowned, their names were cleared.
The Mound, links Princes Street to the Royal Mile. It has underground heating to make sure that the cars and buses can get up the hill in the winter as it is steep and in the cold weather can get icy. We stopped to look at all the old architecture along the way. At the top of the mound we decided to start from the top of the
Royal Mile and work our way down. On our way up we came across a building from 1600's;
Gladstone's Land. they were raising money for it and they had birds of prey that you could take picture with for a donation of £3. Anna didn't want to miss this opportunity and got a picture with Guinevere, an eagle owl.
We cut down to one of the closes where we came across the
Writers museum which is free entry. There was a cute little stair case leading up stairs and outside there were slabs on the pavement with various quotes from different writers. We made our way back up the Royal Mile towards the castle, when a piper started to play. The views from here are amazing as you can see right across the old and the new town.
Off the Royal Mile, we went down George the IV bridge and found that one of my old haunts,
Frankensteins, was still there! I was very excited as this is an old church that was turned into a bar and restaurant. At night there is a dance floor and the DJ booth was the old pulpit. There was an offer on for half price cocktails so we each had one of their signatures. Anna had THE Frankenstein and I had the Bride of Frankenstein. They were wonderfully colourful and rather sweet, but for £4.50 each I guess you couldn't go wrong.
To have a brief escape from the weather we made our way to the
National Museum of Scotland which about 3 min walk from the bar and is free entry. It is a large museum, but we didn't want to spend the whole day there so we decided to have a quick look around the natural history section. On leaving the museum we made a slight detour and I showed her the statue of
Greyfriars Bobby. A famous little dog whose owner passed away. He found his way to his masters funeral and followed his casket to a nearby church;
Greyfriars Kirkyard. He would not leave his owners graveside, they tried to remove him a few times but he would always find his way back. The City of Edinburgh took him into their hearts and adopted him. Taking care of him and allowing him to remain by his masters grave.
Back on the Royal Mile we went past various churches and old buildings with great architecture. Outside one of the churches on the ground is a granite heart decoration;
The Heart of Midlothian. The real story is apparently about it being on the site of a prison where executions used to take place. Spitting on it, was a sign of disdain however the local myth is that
.This is where they used to take criminals for the public to see before they were executed. The tradition would be to spit on them. To this day people do still spit on this stone, although today it is more for Goodluck! There is gothic looking church on the Royal Mile which is now an information centre. You can go on various different Ghost Tours... look out for the jumper ooters.
Anna loves pubs so I decided to take her to The
World's End pub. Back in William Wallace days Edinburgh used to be a walled city. Outside the pub there are markings where the gates to the city used to be, there was a toll to leave and a told to enter, therefore a lot of people didn't leave the city and why it was called the World's End. Here we decided to be traditional and have a wee dram of whiskey. It was a quaint little pub, that was originally a bakers and some of the original features are still visible today.
We were running out of time but there was still so many places I wanted to show her, At the very end of the Royal Mile, I took Anna to see
Hollyrood Palace and the
Scottish Parliament. We wondered past
Dynamic Earth and through the Cow Gate. This area is quite popular with ghost hunters and tours alike.
We went into the Grass Market and I told Anna the story about
Burke and Hare. They were grave diggers who used to sell cadavers to the university for research. The fresher the body, the more money they received. This lead them to murder lodgers that would rent a room from them. They were discovered when they happened to kill a very well known lady of the night. When she was discovered on the operating table, their plans were rumbled.
Finally our day was over and we made our way to Edinburgh train station. With a heavy heart we had to say goodbye to this lovely city and a walk down memory lane.
If you are on a budget Edinburgh is definitely a destination to visit if you are a fan of architecture, history, art and culture. If your lucky you will catch it on a sunny day but even if its dreich (wet and windy) there is still so much to appreciate. It will always be like a second home to me.
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I love watching tennis so when I acquired tickets for the ATP tennis at the O2, I was really excited to see who would be playing at our session. The ATP is a little bit like the lottery, once tickets are purchased the draw for your day is usually picked the day before, so you never know who will be playing in your session until the night before. Tickets can still be purchased online http://www.theo2.co.uk/events, however they will be quite pricey.
For our first match we were lucky enough to see the Wimbledon doubles champions J. Rojer and H. Tecau vs M. Matkowski and N. Zimonjic. It was a good game but you could see from the start that the latter were in trouble. The champs were faster around the court and both had great forehands and volleys. Keeping Matkowski and Zimonjic on their toes. They took the first set 6 - 2. The second set looked like Matkowski and Zimonjic may be in the running to take the second set, however The champions brought it back and beat them 6- 4.
There there is a fan zone where Barclay card customers can win prizes, tennis balls, bags, tennis racquets and also have free access to a small lounge area. We won tennis balls and tennis player Pat Cash was also there doing a meet and greet.
