This week started strong with the completion of another 1000-piece jigsaw. I have this habit of buying and starting jigsaws then they get too difficult so I leave it for a while and then, usually a month later, finish it. This was one that I actually bought for my husband as a Christmas present and it’s a lovely picture of the Bristol Harbour but with added iconic Bristol sights. It was really good fun until we got to the sky section. So. Much. Orange. Anyways it’s done, took my obligatory ‘finished it’ photo and will now have a break before we start the next one.
The rest of the week was pretty quiet as we had a very packed weekend coming up. We flew to Edinburgh on Friday night for a brief visit and look around the city. Our flight got us in at about 8:30 pm so our first night was very short, we got the airport bus into the centre and checked into our hotel then crashed. Hotels in Edinburgh varied wildly in price and location, but thankfully it seems like I had managed to pick a fairly good and nice hotel. We stayed in the Apex Waterloo which is at one of Princes Street. Fantastic location. It’s worth noting that this is not my first visit to Edinburgh, in fact, I grew up in a village in the Scottish Borders for 9 years and this was our nearest city so often visited. This however was my first visit as an adult.
Our morning started with a trip to the zoo. We both love a good zoo and Edinburgh has something none of the other UK ones have…Giant Pandas. This is actually the last summer they will be at the zoo before being returned to China. The zoo itself is hilly, and they check when you pay that you are okay with this. The pandas are almost right at the top of the zoo so be prepared for an uphill hike. There are loads to see on the way though, including the Wallaby Walk-Through. This elusive zoo feature has been on my hit list for years. Bristol Zoo had one and it was always closed whenever I visited, this time though it happened. Took a quick Wallaby selfie to commemorate the moment. The pandas were epic. I have seen them before at other locations, Washington Zoo and San Diego Zoo but there’s something so cool about seeing them somewhere vaguely local. We finished our zoo trip with a stop at the penguin habitat to say hello to the Emperor and Rock Hopper penguins before heading off to explore the rest of the city.
Edinburgh is a great example of public transport working well, everywhere was connected by bus or tram although I’m a big believer in walking a city to experience it so we mostly did that. We next visited Dean Village which is so pretty, took the obligatory photo of the river and houses and walked onwards to Stockbridge. We stopped here for a snack and went to Kilted Doughnuts. This place was unreal, the doughnuts were massive and delicious. The staff were really friendly and the place had a lot of cool features like free women’s sanitary products in the bathroom, a seat with a record player and headphones and a wall FULL of doggy photos. Side note: so many dogs came in while we were in there. Loved the overall vibe.
We then walked from here to the centre and to see Grey Friars Bobby, because you know, when in Edinburgh you go see a statue of a dog. Obviously. So many people here trying to get selfies but fun to see the little pooch. This statue is at the end of the street where The National Museum of Scotland is located and by this point, my feet were starting to hurt a bit so we headed indoors for a sit-down and a mooch. This museum is one of the few really vivid memories I have of visiting Edinburgh as a child. My mum would get her hair done in a salon and while we were waiting, me and my dad would have a look around the museum. It’s changed a lot since then, the entrance is no longer the entrance which was surreal and it’s got a whole other museum built on the side now. It also now has a roof terrace with some great views of Edinburgh. We headed back to the hotel via a quick cocktail in Scran. We were absolutely knackered by this point so had an early tea out at ESF, Edinburgh Street Food before an earlyish night. This food hall is only a few weeks old and was conveniently located a 3-minute walk from the hotel. I had some delicious pasta and we ordered some ice cream for dessert which was okay. It had large chunks of honeycomb in it which were good but the flavour of the ice cream itself was unusual, it was vanilla and miso.
On the second day, we checked out of the hotel early and headed across the road to Bagel Bross, a local delicacy and it was delicious. After this the rain came, this has been predicted for our entire stay but thankfully was only around for about an hour or so. We walked down to Holyrood Palace and peeked through the gates then walked up the Royal Mile taking in all the sites along the way. There are so many little cafes, shops and interesting alleyways along the way. We stopped for some lunch at Deacons House which dates back to 1420 and supposedly is the inspiration for Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. I’m always a bit dubious about claims like this but the cafe itself was cute. I had a coffee and the largest scone I think I have ever seen. So good. We then just mooched around the streets here, we went to see the building from Avengers and the pretty curved street in Haymarket. We decided to stay local in the area for the day as we had our Whiskey tasting later in the afternoon at The Scotch Whiskey Experience. This wasn’t cheap but so good. We bought the Tasting Tales tour and discovered so much history about Scotch Whiskey and got to sample some really nice whiskeys. I could have done some real damage in the shop but as we had travelled hand luggage only we obviously could not get any bottles back through with us. We ended the day with a visit into Edinburgh Castle which was so hilly. It is a massive hill to get to the entrance but inside the roads are even steeper. We had a little look around and took in the views from the castle walls while trying not to get blown away. We ended up at the top seeing the Crown Jewels, this was a walk-in for us but judging by the endless stanchion posts outside I think this can get quite busy. This is where you also find the Stone of Destiny which is used in all Coronations, including most recently King Charles. Before we knew it we were back at the hotel and getting our bags ready for the airport. Ours was one of the last flights out on Sunday night and ended up being delayed for about 2 hours which is what we expected as we had been monitoring them in the weeks prior.
The flight was nice and easy, love an Easyjet cheap and cheerful flight. Bristol Airport however upon arrival was a shambles. Well, not the airport itself but the transport home. The Airport Flyer bus we always get left early as it was full (3 flights came in past midnight including ours). So the queue for taxis was crazy, Uber wanted £80 so we settled on Arrow Cars who still wanted £40 which is daylight robbery honestly. While we were waiting there was another girl travelling alone who asked if anyone was going in the same direction so we offered to share as it turned out we would drive right past her house. Anyways the taxi driver did not like this, he refused to take her initially until she agreed to get out at our stop and walk back to hers but he still wasn’t happy about it. He actually said that he was losing money by us doing this. There were literally about 20 other people all still waiting, not sure what his problem was. He was more than happy to drop this girl off though and have her walk home at 1 am at night alone instead of literally stopping for 30 seconds on the way to ours. Disgusting. Other than that sourness at the end of the night though we had such a good weekend. My poor legs though covered about 18 miles over the two days and climbed nearly 60 flights of stairs.
