A year or 2 ago I came to the conclusion ad I and probably everyone else should really visit the places nearest to them first before venturing further afield. I’d already been all over Ireland, Northern Ireland and a handful of trips to England but for some reason had always ignored Scotland and Wales. In fairness, I’d already tried to book a trip to Edinburgh a few years ago only to be swayed by an irresistibly priced trip to Morocco so when a Ryanair flight deal to Edinburgh came in earlier this year I jumped on it.
Having secured very reasonably priced but ridiculously early return flights, I looked for accommodation on Booking.com and was surprised to see a Toby Carvery come up! We said the next time we went to the UK we’d have a Tobys as we’d been very impressed with ones in Bournemouth and Liverpool so when I realised they done rooms too it was a win win. It was nicely located about 10 mins from the airport and about 20mins from the city centre and on major bus routes. Not cheap though!
So I’d done a little bit of research on Edinburgh before we went, as one does, but it still ended up surprising us lots. We didn’t fully realise how charming and different it would be. Like a cross between the London of Mary Poppins, Prague and the set of Harry Potter, which of course it pretty much was! It’s hilly so a good workout walking around but all the main sites are reachable by foot including the Castle, Royal Mile, Princes Street, Greyfriars Bobby, the Old Town, New Town, Museum of Scotland and my personal favourite, Calton Hill from which you’ll get some great 360 views over the city. We went on an underground vaults tour to learn some dark Scottish history and an excellent, hi-tech Whisky tour up beside the castle incl a tasting and souvenir glass. While we waited for the whiskey tour we had a quick pint in the ancient Ensign Ewart, the closest pub to the castle and highest pub in Edinburgh!
Food was hit and miss, our Toby carvery wasn’t as nice as others we’d been to and their brekkie was average. We had a full Scottish on arrival in the Edinburgh Larder including some haggis which I’d never had before. Full Irish is better! Our Italian meal and pizzas in Vittoria’s on the last night was awesome though.
