Friday morning Eleanor and I woke up at 5 am. We got up and then walked in the rain to the train station. It is really convenient that Kings Cross Station is so close to us and thus very easy to walk to. The train ride was just a bit over four hours. The ride was quite scenic, staying on the ocean for the second half of the ride, so we were able to have some gorgeous views. As we exited the train station we were greeted by the sounds of bagpipes. Eleanor and I are convinced that they require bagpipes to be audible in all parts of the city, we heard them all the time! Once we arrived, we walked down the Royal Mile and found our hostel. It is situated less than 100 meters from the castle and we could see the castle from the front door.
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| Our hostel is the building across the road. |
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| View of Edinburgh Castle from our hostel doorstep |
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| Taking in the view from the courtyard outside of the castle |
After taking in the view, we went into town and grabbed lunch at a shop called Piemakers. It had been recommended to me by a friend and it was a wonderful place with over 20 pies all costing under 2 pounds. I asked for whatever was most popular and got a steak pie. It was overflowing with filling and had a delicate pastry coating.
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| My pie! |
Filled up, we headed to our free tour! Eleanor knew about the tour and it was a great choice! Despite the cold, we saw lots of Edinburgh and learned about the history of the city.
Our guide took us through the secessions and wars, people of Edinburgh (including the philosopher Hume), cemetery (containing graves to Tom Riddle, McGonagall, and a Moody), and Bobby the dog.
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| Grave for the founder of /Encyclopedia Britannica |
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| Grave of Tom Riddle. It is said that J.K. Rowling's writing group suggested going to the cemetery for character ideas. |
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| This is Greyfriars Bobby. He was a dog whose owner died and he stayed by his owners grave for 12 years. He ended up getting the right to vote, the keys to the city, and became a popular fellow in town. |
It was a really entertaining and all encompassing tour. I did not realize that Edinburgh was such a small town before arriving, but we quickly discovered that there were about 3 main roads and that was all that we needed. After the tour, we went to The Elephant House, where J.K. Rowling wrote the first two Harry Potter books.
Eleanor got this mint tea (truly mint in hot water) and I got a hot chocolate. Afterwards, we headed to dinner at the Mosque Kitchen. They serve the food cafeteria style and I got a humongous bowl of rice and chicken curry and naan. I could not finish all of the rice and Eleanor and I were both stuffed! We went back to relax at the hostel for a bit and get situated. Once we no longer felt like we could blow up we went to a local pub called Frankenstein. It was a really cool atmosphere and a fun place to hang out.
