It's now Tuesday evening and we've spent two whole days in Edinburgh. We love this place! The history, the architecture, the people, and the cleanliness of the city are all reasons to fall in love. Yesterday morning after our nap, we forced ourselves to get out of bed despite the lack of sleep to try to get on a normal sleep schedule. Our B&B is a quick 20 minute stroll away from the center of the city so we bundled up and walked in. The temperature is fairly moderate...somewhere around 40-45 degrees but the wind is horrendous! It is nice to feel the cool weather although, leaving Charleston when it's 75 degrees definitely makes it feel like any time of the year except Christmas. Beings it was Christmas day, everything in the town was shut down and most people were at home with their families. This made it very quiet but we kind of liked it. As a promise to Miss Julie Waller, we found a Scottish pub, Deacon Brodie's Tavern, to enjoy fish and chips and a cold beer as our Christmas dinner. She said that is what SHE wanted for Christmas but didn't exactly have to twist our arm. It was delicious Jules...thanks for dinner!
After we ate, we walked up and down the "Royal Mile" and came home...The Royal Mile actually consists of 4 different streets which once divided two settlements, Edinburgh & Canongate. At the beginning of the mile is the Edinburgh Castle (which we are touring tomorrow) that dates back to the 11th century. Hard to believe. We basically came back home after our self-guided walking tour but not before Matt stopped to grab a few brews from a local convenience store. He thought he was buying really manly, stout Scottish beer, but in fact it was hard apple cider. Fail. He drank about half of one.
We came back home around 6:00 as everything was shut down in the city, and by 7, we were both ready for bed. We went to sleep and woke up about 3 hours later wide awake, watched a movie on the iPad, and then attempted to go back to sleep for a few hours. Let's just say this morning was a little rough! Our host, Shaun, made us the most delicious, full Scottish breakfast complete with poached eggs, bacon, sausage, beans, toast, and unlimited OJ. We started the day off right.
We then headed into town for the day...touring the National Museum of Scotland, the Scotch Whiskey Experience (a.k.a. "Malt Disney"), tried for the 2nd time to attend mass at St. Giles Cathedral (closed...but open tomorrow), and went to the Palace of Holyroodhouse. Today is "Boxing Day" in Scotland, a holiday that follows Christmas Day where people go out and SHOP! So...I ended my day at Zara (I thought of you Alicia...and Kari, I finally bought my blazer!) Everything was on sale...good thing we only have carry-ons! Tonight, we ate dinner at Zizzi which was an amazing pasta and pizza joint. Now, we are home and we actually made it to 9:00 so far so we are doing better than last night.
That's about all for today...hope you had a lovely day after Christmas:)
No comments:
Post a Comment