Friday Evening

Edinburgh is one of our favourite cities. We had already visited earlier this year, which you can read all about here, here, here, here, here …and finally here!. However the opportunity to celebrate Scotland’s national day, St Andrew’s Day 2013, with the locals gave Sarah and I another opportunity to venture north. Major tourist attractions open their doors for free on this day and we hoped to join the throngs. Things didn’t go quite as planned, but once again we had a wonderful time in Scotland’s capital city.

Arriving on the Friday evening,  after dropping our stuff at the Britannia Hotel where we were staying, we wandered over to Prince’s Street and walked around Edinburgh’s Christmas Markets.

One thing that seems to be a constant at all Christmas Markets is the gluhwein!

There were stores selling items pretty much the same as most Christmas Markets, e.g. Manchester Christmas Markets,  just with a ‘Scottish’ tint to them.

There are also quite a few fair rides for people to enjoy.

    

The city centre was ablaze with Christmas colours.

And when the walking and looking around was over we finished with a drink at The Kenilworth on Rose Street.

St Andrew’s Day 2013

We began the day with a run setting off along The Water of Leith. It isn’t too often we have the opportunity to run somewhere completely different, so I really enjoyed this new route.

  

Sarah however wasn’t feeling too well, but still managed to run up the Royal Mile to the castle. I, for one, was impressed with her determination.

 

After the run came the walk. We headed into the city centre.

We found Henderson’s Cafe at St John’s Church. It is a wonderful little setting selling vegetarian meals, and perhaps best of all they make lots of different gluten-free cakes. Heaven for Sarah!

We had hoped to visit the Edinburgh Castle but this was fully booked.

Instead we made our way down to the Palace of Holyroodhouse.

  

  

Sadly we were unable to take photo’s inside the palace, suffice it to say that there were some lovely rooms providing a wonderful backdrop to moments of Scotland’s history, including of course this being the home at one point of Mary Queen of Scots. The only downside of visiting on this free day was that it was BUSY BUSY BUSY! So much so that at one point we were unable to move around the rooms.

Getting our breath back we popped into Cafe Truva on the Royal Mile. I tried a Turkish coffee which I didn’t enjoy too much, at least, not until I had added lots of sugar. Thankfully Sarah thoroughly enjoyed her hot chocolate.

From there we headed over to the Straw Market to catch a little of the events at the free open-air stage

Sarah also tried a hot cider!

  

We finished the day off by returning to our favourite Indian restaurant, Omar Khayyam, which is situated in the Haymarket area.

Sunday

We had planned to go for a ramble in the Pentland Hills, but with Sarah not feeling too well we decided a further stroll around Edinburgh city centre would be a better idea.

We passed St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral an imposing building on Palmerston Place.

  

  

Then it was back to Henderson’s Cafe at St John’s Church.

After tea and cake we decided to walk through Prince’s Street Gardens, but this time along the section below the castle.

This meant leaving St John’s Episcopal church to walk through St Cuthbert’s Parish church which is next door.

  

  

Unfortunately, when we got to the far end of the gardens we found it locked and had to walk all the way back to the entrance we had just come in from. Just as well that we enjoy walking!

  

We then made our way over to the Scottish National Art Gallery. It was a brief visit since we were running out of time and needed to be back on the road for home, however it was worth the visit and certainly gave us a glimpse of a place well worth visiting again the next time we are in the city.

And then it was time to head home. Our walk back gave us a final opportunity to take some photo’s and we were able to capture the city as the sun set.

Sadly our visit was once again proved all too brief. Oh well …that gives the excuse to visit Edinburgh again soon!