Storyline: A Glimpse of Scotland
We are now home still dealing with the jet lag. We are done with travelling for this year. Our travel budget is exhausted (as are we) and our house needs some tender loving care. There will still be posts from our England train travel in the spring, coming in the next little while. Our final destination from our Scotland-by-rail travel was Edinburgh. We made it in one long day from Thurso to Aberdeen. An afternoon and evening in Aberdeen was enough for us.
It is a big city with all the signs of it. It has pretty gardens to the north and nice University area. The encounter with Dave in a local pub made it for a good facebook post, the food in another pub we dined in was good, but that was about it.
The railways from Inverness to Aberdeen and from Aberdeen to Edinburgh, although nice and green were not as dramatic as were the rails in the Highlands. The trains were fast and too crowded for photos. The most interesting part aside from the sea views was crossing the Forth Rail Bridge approaching Edinburgh. There are some 200 trains crossing the Firth of Forth on this UNESCO World Heritage Site daily and it is considered a symbol of Scotland.
We arrived at Edinburgh train station after a huge downpour (deja vu!). Rolling the carry-ons to our new place for 4 days late Sunday afternoon we passed by a small market just around the corner. We quickly deposited our luggage at the home and ran back to the market, going crazy on shopping local produce and delicacies. We secured food the entire stay and more.
There was a tent with 3 big (huge – about a metre and a half) paella pans, two almost empty and the third still cooking. By the time we finished shopping for other goods, it was almost gone too. We lined up and managed to secure some freshly cooked dinner (lovely fresh seafood…and the vendor/cook was actually Spanish) that drank a whole bottle of wine (with our help).
Edinburgh first impression – lovely city. Our home was in Stockbridge, just meters away from the Water of Leith Walkway that takes you through some pretty places like Dean Village. The drawback of renting a pretty place is that one wants to spend more time there. We unfortunately did not have much time to explore Dean Village and Stockbridge that seemed like attractive places.
The next two days we wandered up and down hills of Edinburgh. It is pretty. We decided to pay our tourist tax by visiting the castle. As any other touristy place, it was overcrowded.
We enjoyed the walk through it and the views from it when we could actually see something through the crowds. And then… we walked to the almost empty but free writers’ museum, which has exhibits of Walter Scott, Robert Burns and R.L. Stevenson) which we enjoyed tremendously.
We also managed to hike to Arthur’s seat the following day although it was quite windy. You probably remember our post about narrowly escaping the hurricane Ali, so our last day in Edinburgh was not as productive. There are many more places to visit. So we’ll have to go back some day.
At the end of the first day we reached the gin distillery. We would of course have had to pre-book 3 weeks in advance to visit it. How we are not surprised, after Talsiker? We ended up dining in a nice restaurant above it, that had some of the gin I wanted to try. Next day I bought 2 bottles of the rhubarb and ginger product that made it home with us.
Slàinte! (Cheers!)
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