After leaving the bustle of Paris, Edinburgh, Scotland is a breath of fresh air. The Main airport has only one small terminal and 2 baggage carousels. I only needed to wait 30 minutes before the bags began coming out.
Getting to the city
Even leaving the airport to get to the city I had several options. There are several bus companies, Tolley/trains, taxis, and ride shares that will get passengers from the airport to the old city. I chose the cheapest, the Airport Express Edinburgh Airport Express – Cheap & Fast | Bright Bus Tours at 4 pounds for a one-way ticket and they leave the airport every 15 minutes. There were only 4 of us on the bus. My only complaint is that none of the stops are announced and with so few people I needed to pay attention to make sure I was getting off in the right place.
Accommodations
Now I have to be honest since I was having my large suitcase picked up from the hotel after I left the city and I could not get a hold of anyone at the Palmerston Suites and the reviews were not painting a reliable picture for me, I ate the cost of the lodgings and booked another hotel where I knew the receptions would be there on Monday.
I am so glad that I did. I ended up staying at the Holiday Inn Express Holiday Inn Express Hotel Edinburgh – Royal Mile (ihg.com) in the old city. The location was great, the room was clean and big and the reception area was very helpful both with printing out new tags for my bag and also making sure that it would be picked up correctly.
I did find accommodation in the city to be ridiculously expensive though.
Sight Seeing
Endinburgh Castle
Pre-buy your ticket online. I can’t stress this enough, many disappointed people were looking to get into a sold-out castle. I was lucky because a sold-out Paris freaked me out enough that I thought to prebuy in Edinburgh, otherwise, I would have been one of the disappointed masses.
I also purchased an audio guide that played on my phone for 3 pounds.
I took a couple of hours to explore all of the displays and rooms here. There was an additional line in the building where they stored the crown, scepter, and sword used in government swearing-ins. I also was able to see the room where Mary Queen of Scotts gave birth to James II. It was a tiny but easily defendable room. These buildings did not allow any photographs for security purposes.
Harry Potter
Edinburgh is the inspiration for the books in the Harry Potter series, so I decided to spend some time first thing in the morning hunting down a few iconic places.
Up the road and three blocks right is Greyfriars Church. There are several familiar names for the books found in the kirkyard out back, but it is actually more famous for the dog that used to live there.
Beer Tour
It was a toss-up between the beer tour and the ghost tour. The beer tasting and walk won. It met up at Grass Market Street and had the group (me and a family of 6) walking to 3 different breweries learning about the ales and lagers that we were sampling at each location.
I had a very knowledgeable guide who taught the group all about malting (Pale, Crystal, and Caramel), and how clarity, scent, and taste affect the drink.
Other sites
Of course there was many other places I saw on my journey that were special on their own.
There is tonnes to see and do in Edinburgh and I could easily spend another day or two exploring more.
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