Edinburgh, Scotland - June 13th to 16th, 2025
Edinburgh is a large city in Scotland. There is an old castle and a royal palace, at the ends of a long street called the Royal Mile. It is also home to the Scottish Parliament. As such, the city is bustling with traffic and people and, of course, lots of tourists. Big cities are not our favorite places to visit, but we wanted to see if Edinburgh was worth dealing with the crowds.
Friday was a travel day from St. Andrews to Edinburgh. Along the way, we made a couple of stops. Our first stop was in the cute little fishing village of Crail, along the coast.
We wandered the streets, then walked down to the beach. On Google Maps, there was a highlight posted about fossils in the rocks on the beach. We searched around for them, but couldn’t find them. Either we didn’t recognize them when we saw them or we weren’t looking in the right places. There were some interesting rocks, though.
We stopped into Crail Harbour Gallery & Tearoom. It was a cute little place with a patio overlooking the North Sea. The place was popular and busy, so the service was not fast, but it was a great place to relax and enjoy the view. Keith had the lemon berry delice while Ann had the zucchini and lime cake with lemon curd. Delice is a French layered dessert. Ann had one before back in Chagford (Dartmoor National Park, England - March 28th - 31st, 2025). Lemon curd is like a custard, but with a higher proportion of fruit juice and zest. Due to its bold taste, it is generally used as a spread or topping. Ann has made it at home on occasion.
After following the coast for a little while longer, we then headed over to the Falkirk Wheel. The Falkirk Wheel is a rotating boat lift used to connect the Forth and Clyde Canal with the Union Canal. It was opened in 2002, reconnecting the canals for the first time since the 1930’s. Before that, there were 11 locks that connected the two canals, which took all day to pass through.
The Falkirk Wheel is the only rotating boat lift in the world and one of only two boat lifts in the United Kingdom. The lift raises the boats 24 meters (79 feet) with two locks bringing the boats the rest of the way up to the Union Canal, another 11 meters (36 feet).
We arrived just in time to watch the Falkirk Wheel raise up one boat while simultaneously lowering two boats. The water levels in the two caissons or gondolas is maintained so that the weight of each one balances the other. The lift is not a fast process, as it took about four and a half minutes for the rotation to complete, not counting the time to load and unload the boats into and out of the caissons. However, that is a lot faster than going through a series of locks.
After we watched the completion of one lift, we paid for our parking (4 GBP) and went into the cafe for a late lunch. Ann had a salad with cajun chicken and roasted vegetables while Keith opted for the leek and potato soup. The salad was pretty tasty and satisfied Ann’s vegetable cravings. Even though we sat inside to eat, the whole side of the building was glass, so we could watch the Falkirk Wheel in action while we ate.
When we reached Sherwood Guest House in Edinburgh, all three of the parking spots out front were taken. We dropped off our bags and Vivian gave us instructions of where to park on a safe, residential street not too far away.
We had reserved the smallest room in the guest house, but there was a cancellation, so Vivian gave us her largest room. It had a double bed along with two twin beds. The high ceilings also made the room feel quite spacious.
The beds not only had duvet covers, but also top sheets and bedspreads. That was quite unusual, as most of the places we’ve been in Europe only have duvets and no top sheets. We’re used to sleeping with only a duvet, but as the temperatures warm up, it is nice to have the option to sleep with just a top sheet. However, there are techniques to regulate your comfort with a duvet, by controlling what percentage of your body is under the duvet.
For dinner, we walked over to the Old Bell Inn for dinner. It was a lovely pub, full of locals, just a couple of blocks from Sherwood. Ann had the penne arrabbiata while Keith ordered the cajun chicken burger. To drink, Ann opted for the Orchard Pig cider from Somerset England while Keith drank the McClellan’s Best Bitter from Barney’s Beer in Edinburgh, just a few blocks down the street from the Inn.
Saturday was a rainy day. We relaxed in the morning, enjoying the continental breakfast at the Sherwood Guest House. From what we remember from living in Germany long ago, the breakfast was a typical European continental breakfast. There was yogurt, cereals, an assortment of rolls, jams, cheese slices, cold cuts, and soft boiled eggs. Ann remembered how to crack the top of the egg while it was in its little stand and scoop out the innards with a little spoon. She also tried the brambles jam. We’ve never heard of brambles jam before. From the picture on the label, it looked like it might have been blackberries.
We finally ventured out in the rain in search of lunch. From the guest house, we walked through The Meadows to reach the Old Town. The Meadows is a large park. We were surprised to not only see kids playing football (soccer) in the rain, but a couple of people were playing tennis in the rain. Do they play with special tennis balls that can bounce properly when soaking wet?
For lunch, we stopped at MUMS Great Comfort Food on Forrest Road. It seemed like the sausages and mash was their specialty, so that’s what Ann ordered, while Keith had the cajun chicken burger. For the sausages and mash, you have several options. First, you choose one or two types of sausage from a list of five or more. Then you pick a type of mash, from a list of ten, including things like turnip & carrot or caramelized leek & bacon. Finally, there are three different gravies to choose from.
Ann had a MUMS traditional herby pork and a Auld Reekie (smokey pork) with plain & simple mash and tomato & thyme gravy. It was pretty filling and comforting. Just what you would expect.
From there we walked over to the National Museum of Scotland and picked up a hop on-hop off bus. We bought the Grand 24 Ticket, which included three different bus tours for 24 hours. The red bus was the one we started on, the City Sightseeing bus. They gave us some headphones to plug into the little display at each seat. You could choose from a variety of languages and adjust the volume for the pre-recorded commentary. This was better than the commentary through the speakers on the bus back in York, as we had a hard time hearing that one.
We rode the red bus from stop 9, through the last stop (15), to stop 1, at Waterloo Place. From Waterloo Place, we switched to the blue bus, the Regal Tour, which took us all the way out to New Haven and Leith, where the Royal Yacht Britannia is docked. We did not get off to tour the boat, but continued on the 80 minute tour all the way back to Waterloo Place.
At this point, we were getting a little cold and tired of sitting. We were riding on top of the double decker bus, but under the covered portion. However, the cool outside air seemed to settle at our feet. To get warmed up, we walked over to a coffee shop, called Mor Bakehouse, in the Waverley Market, and ordered hot drinks.
There was one more bus to ride, the green bus, the Edinburgh Tour with live commentary. It is a 65 minute tour, but runs a similar route to the red bus’s 70 minute tour. However, it goes in the opposite direction as the City Sightseeing red bus. So to ride the green bus to pick up the half of the tour we missed on the red bus, we walked over to the green bus’s number 8 stop, in front of the Museum of Childhood. From there we rode it all the way through stop 13 and back to Waterloo Place, stop 1.
We enjoyed the live commentary better than the pre-recorded commentary on the red bus, as the live commentary was more engaging. However, if you don’t understand English very well, you might find the pre-recorded commentary in your native language better. Either way, we would recommend not taking both the red and green buses as they pretty much cover the same route.
After spending all afternoon riding buses in the rain, it was now getting close to dinner time. We walked over to Sandy Bell’s to see if they had live traditional music playing. There were a couple of guitar players who also sang, but they didn’t play much traditional music. Also, Sandy Bell’s does not serve food, only drinks. We stayed for one pint, then moved on to find dinner.
Just down the street was Vittoria’s on the Bridge, an Italian restaurant. It was recommended by the couple we chatted with back in Portree on the Isle of Skye (Isle of Skye, Scotland - June 2nd to 5th, 2025). The place was hopping, but it was a large restaurant with multiple floors, so we were seated right away. The staff was scurrying around and they turned over the tables pretty fast. Given how busy they were, we were surprised at how fast our food was ready.
Ann ordered the penne Milanese while Keith had the carbonara. The pasta was tasty. For dessert, Ann picked the chocolate profiteroles (cream puffs) while Keith had the tiramisu. After dinner, we had about a 25 minute walk back to the guest house to work off some of those calories.
The rain stopped on Sunday. After breakfast, we walked over to the Old Town and strolled up and down the Royal Mile that stretches from Edinburgh Castle to the Palace of Holyrood House. Just like the day before, there were several bagpipers, dressed in kilts, playing along the Royal Mile.
Almost every block were doorways to narrow passageways leading to courtyards. A passageway is called a “close” and most of them along the Royal Mile have names posted above the doorway. We made a point to peek down each close as we passed by, because some of them led to interesting places. The one we liked was Dunbar’s Close that led to a courtyard with pretty gardens.
By the time we reached the Edinburgh Castle, it was around 11:30 am. Our timed entry tickets to Edinburgh Castle were not until 2 pm, so we still had some time to spend wandering. We stopped for lunch near the castle, at the Coo Bakehouse. Ann had a mozzarella, tomato, and pesto panini while Keith had a sausage roll. We should have spent more time picking out a place to eat, because the food was not the best we’ve had. There were plenty of cafe’s in the area and we should have checked their Google ratings.
From there, we took steps down to Victoria Street, with its colorful store fronts, and through the Grassmarket where public hangings used to take place. We then circled around the streets below the castle.
The castle sits up on top of a hill, surrounded on three sides by steep, rocky cliffs, with the only access from the east along Castle Hill Road, part of the Royal Mile.
As we came around to the north side of the castle, below the cliffs, we entered Princes Street Gardens. The gardens sit down below street level of Princes Street. It is a lovely, large park with plenty of benches to sit, relax, and people watch. It was a refreshing change to the mobs of tourists and tour groups on the Royal Mile.
Near the Ross Fountain, we stopped at the Castle Cafe for ice cream. Ann had her usual chocolate paired with mint chocolate chip, while Keith had a scoop of chocolate along with a scoop of vanilla. We sat at a picnic table, enjoying the fountain with views of the castle above it.
We strolled through Princes Street Gardens, past several monuments, the Royal Scottish Academy, and the National Galleries of Scotland, to Waverley Market.
Waverley Market is an indoor shopping mall next to the railway station. Both the market and the railway station sit below street level. The railway station is covered with glass panels that look like green houses. We walked through the station and over to Market Street.
There are sort of two levels of streets near the Royal Mile, which is why the upper street leading to High Street (part of the Royal Mile) is called North Bridge, changing to South Bridge on the other side of High Street. They don’t feel like bridges, as the street is lined with buildings, but if you look through the gaps between the buildings, you will see the lower streets below.
We walked up Market Street back to the castle. Since we still had time, we picked up a couple of cold drinks from the fish & chips food truck outside the Tolbooth Kirk. Then we sat down at a table, enjoyed our drinks, the view, and the sound of bagpipes playing.
In the Esplanade leading up to the castle Gatehouse, they were setting up massive stadium seating for the upcoming Edinburgh International Festival. It takes two months to set up the stadium and two months to take it back down after the festival. The festival runs from August 1st to 24th, with world-class music, theater, opera, and dance at various venues throughout the city. But the main attraction at the Esplanade venue is the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo which performs every evening in the stadium. For a taste of the military tattoo, check out previous shows on YouTube: BBC The Royal Edinburgh 75th Military Tattoo.
Edinburgh Castle is quite a large complex. Inside the walls are the Royal Palace, St. Margaret’s Chapel, museums, and war prisons, . There is also a cafe and a whisky tasting room. If you are into history and museums, you could spend the whole day there. However, we don’t last very long inside museums and don’t like to read a lot of displays. We are more skimmers.
We explored the outside of all of the buildings, ramparts, and cannons, including the Mons Meg, a six-tonne siege gun that was added to the castle in 1460. We went inside the Great Hall, the Scottish National War Museum, the Museum of the Royal Scots & Royal Regiment, and the Prisons of War exhibit.
However, there was a long queue (line) to get into the Royal Palace, where the Honours of Scotland (the Scottish Crown Jewels) were on display, so we didn’t go inside. There was also a queue to look inside St. Margaret’s Chapel, so we skipped that as well. We also skipped the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards Regimental Museum as we had reached our saturation limit of museums for the day.
The website says to allow at least two hours for visiting the castle. We were there for about an hour and a half, not because we ran out of things to see, but we wanted to escape the crowds of people.
After leaving the castle, we looked for a quick bite to eat for dinner. We had tickets for a concert that evening in St. Giles Cathedral that started at 6 pm. We didn’t want to go to a sit down restaurant and be late for the concert because of the slow service. Most restaurants in Europe are not known for fast service, as they expect you to spend the evening there.
We ducked into Pronto Slice, which served pizza by the slice. Ann had a slice of a New York style Margherita pizza while Keith opted for the pepperoni Neopolitan-style slice. The pizzas were already cooked, but they heated them up again in the oven, so they were served hot. They were true to their name, as we were eating our slices in no time.
OK, that was probably a little too fast. We still had some time to kill before the concert. So we walked down the steps to Victoria Street and popped into La Barantine Victoria, a French Patisserie, for dessert. We arrived just before they switched over to takeaway only. There weren’t many pastry options left, but we both had a slice of bread and butter pudding to go along with our cappuccino and chai latte. We’ve had bread and butter pudding before, in Doolin, Ireland (link to post). It is pretty tasty.
Even after all that, we still had some time to kill before the concert. It seemed to be the theme for the day. So we sat outside St. Giles, listening to the bagpipers playing on the Royal Mile.
The concert was cellist, Emily Brockett and piano player Karolina Kubalkova. They played pieces by Beethoven, Debussy, Prokofiev, and Rachmaninov. The concert was free, but donations were accepted. They were both very talented musicians and the acoustics inside the cathedral made their performance even more enjoyable.
Monday we walked, and walked, and walked. Our first stop was the Palace of Holyrood House. It was about a 40 minute walk from our guest house, at least the way we went.
The Holyrood House is the official British Royal Family’s residence in Edinburgh. A self-guided tour is open to the public. The 25 GBP admission per adult (cheaper if booked in advance) included an audio tour device with headphones. The tour leads you through the palace, then through the ruins of the Holyrood Abbey and gardens. The abbey was built in 1128 while the old parts of the palace that still exist today were constructed starting in 1528. The palace is more intimate than other British royal palaces. Through the tour, we learned more Scottish and British history. Unfortunately, no photography was allowed inside the palace, as it is still used today by the Royal Family.
After the tour, we stopped in the Café at the Palace for lunch. Ann had the Moroccan chickpea pie while Keith had the venison and apricot sausage roll, which was much better than the sausage roll he had the day before. We also appreciated that our two items came with roasted vegetables on the side, and not the typical carrots, peas, and potatoes, but rather summer squash, sweet peppers, and courgette (zucchini).
Across the street from the palace is the Scottish Parliament building. It is open to the public for free, so we ventured inside. You do have to pass through security first, similar to an airport security. The original Scottish Parliament lasted from the early 13th century to 1707, when Scotland merged with England. Then, in 1997, the Scottish people voted for Scotland to have its own Parliament again. The current Parliament was created in 1998. The new Parliament building was opened in 2004. It is a modern design with references to Scottish architecture and mirrors the landscape. Some people love the new building, while others hate it.
The debating chamber has a large public viewing area above it. The debating chamber was not being used during the time we were there. The debates and meetings are open to the public, but you cannot interrupt, disrupt, or distract parliamentary business. You can even watch parliament meetings on Scottish Parliament TV, both live and archived.
From the Parliament, we walked up to the top of Calton Hill, about a 15 minute walk. There are several monuments on top of the hill along with an observatory. But the main reason to climb to the top of the hill is the view of the surrounding area. It is a much easier climb than going up to Arthur’s Seat, as Calton Hill is a shorter climb up a paved walk instead of a longer, unpaved path.
From Calton Hill, it was a half hour walk over to the Royal Botanical Gardens. Once we arrived at the Botanic Garden East Gate, we stopped at the East Gate Coffee Bar for some refreshments and to rest our feet for a few minutes. We both had muffins with our cold drinks, one mixed berry and one salted caramel. We took advantage of the nearby restrooms as well.
After our needed break, we wandered the gardens. There were lovely paths, both paved and unpaved, that wound around the gardens. It was so peaceful and relaxing compared to the rest of the city.
There was a pond and waterfalls with ducks, moorhens, and heron. The trees included a grouping of California sequoias.
We even saw a lot of squirrels. Being from the States, seeing squirrels doesn’t seem like a big deal, but in Ireland and Scotland, there are not a lot of trees, so we haven’t seen many squirrels in the past couple of months. These were not red squirrels, that Ireland and Scotland are trying to protect, but it was still nice to see squirrels again.
After strolling around admiring all the plants and flowers for about an hour and a half, we returned to the East Gate Coffee Bar for a couple of cold drinks before starting our walk back.
From the gardens, it was pretty much a straight shot up Dundas St. back to the Old Town. Again, it was about a half an hour walk to the Devil’s Advocate, the restaurant we picked out for dinner. The restaurant is tucked away along Advocate’s Close, a narrow passageway that starts opposite St. Giles Cathedral at High Street and goes all the way to Cockburn Street.
We didn’t have reservations, but, since it was early, about 4:30 pm, they were able to squeeze us in before one of their reservations. They made it clear that we could only have the table for about an hour and 45 minutes. That was plenty of time for us, even if service was slow.
We both ordered the grilled pork chop for dinner. It was delicious. It was served with shallot tarte tatin, spring greens, lime & oregano chimichurri, and sautéed baby new potatoes. A shallot tarte tatin is a shallot cooked slowly under a puff pastry until it caramelizes (a variation of the French fruit tarte tatin). For dessert, Keith had the raspberry cheesecake while Ann opted for the rhubarb crumble with crème anglaise (a pouring custard). The meal was the best food we’ve had in quite a while.
From there, you guessed it, it was about a half hour walk back to Sherwood Guest House. We turned in early, but our legs and feet were ready to rest. Ann’s Apple Watch said we walked almost 20 kilometers (12 miles) that day.
It was through lots of walking that we dealt with all the traffic and people of Edinburgh. We were able to take the crowds in doses, then walk to more peaceful, yet just as scenic, areas of the city so we could recharge. And yes, Edinburgh was worth it.
Check out our related video: Edinburgh, Scotland
(Ann)