I mentioned rather briefly in my previous post that I spent Sunday afternoon in the beautiful city of Edinburgh and, even though I'm terrible when it comes to taking photographs on day trips, I thought I'd write a little post about my day. There's definitely a deep sense of wanderlust inside of me and I don't think it's going to go away any time soon. My boyfriend and I absolutely love to travel (trips to Prague, London and Paris have already been booked for the remainder of 2014) and our spontaneous visit to Edinburgh was a lovely break from work! We even managed to book first class return tickets for £40 each and now I've experienced the luxury of having room to actually stretch out on a train it's going to be painful having to go back to standard seating!
We arrived at Newcastle station in time for our 11 o'clock train only to find we had been delayed an hour. This was rather annoying as everything shuts so early on a Sunday but we entertained ourselves by having an early lunch (Sainsbury's finest meal deal!) and by feeding a poor one-legged pigeon who was hopping around at our feet. To be honest I'm not usually a fan of pigeons (who is?) but this little guy was rather small, cute and fluffy! We arrived in Edinburgh at half past 1 and, as it was my first ever visit to Scotland, we decided to walk up the Royal Mile and take a look at the castle. The buildings were beautiful, the haggis stayed very far away from my mouth (yuck!) and tartan was absolutely everywhere. I made a little mental note that if I was ever in need of a tartan scarf again, Edinburgh was the place to visit! A couple of shops had some lovely tartan blankets that I really wanted for my room at University but I didn't fancy carrying it around for the rest of the day. As the day went on it began to get a little bit chilly so I quickly popped into H&M and bought a jumper to keep me warm as I seem to never bring appropriate clothing with me... But then I get to go shopping, so maybe that's a good thing?
This wasn't actually the outfit I was wearing that day, to be honest it's what I'm wearing right now but I thought I'd take a quick photo of my jumper so you could all see what I purchased. I didn't actually have time to try it on in the shop and I picked up a Small (which according to H&M is a 10-12) so it's actually a little bit big but I prefer it that way! It's so comfortable and warm and I love cream/white shade, I can see it becoming a staple in my Autumn/Winter wardrobe!
We didn't stay in the newer part of town for very long, shopping wasn't really on the agenda for the day, and we had booked a tour of Mary King's Close for 3:45 pm. Whilst we waited, my boyfriend and I both had a milky way milkshake from a quirky little place called The City Cafe and it was way too yummy to waste time taking a photo of, sorry guys! Twenty minutes later we headed back to the Royal Mile, feeling a tiny bit sick whoops, and it was time for the tour. Mary King's Close is an underground street in Edinburgh that used to have houses ten storeys high. The top five were demolished to make room for Royal Exchange and the remaining five were used as its foundations. This meant part of the close has survived underground and the tour took place in these abandoned streets. It was actually a really interesting and exciting experience and tales of the plague, murder and ghosts accompanied the tour. If you ever visit Edinburgh you should definitely go down and have a look, it's amazing how there's a street right underneath your feet when you walk along the Royal Mile!
After the tour we headed over to the new part of town and wandered the streets, looking for somewhere to eat before we made our journey home. It was during this time that I spotted Anthropolgie and spent the next hour swooning over everything in the store! If you'd like to see what I really wanted to buy (sadly I'm too busy saving up for Prague to spend any money) you can check out my wishlist here. We decided to eat in a small restaurant over the road from Anthrpologie called Mad dogs and I ordered the steak whilst my boyfriend had the enchiladas. The food was quite nice, not amazing but still rather tasty, and we ordered a cocktail to accompany our meal! I ordered some raspberry lemon-y concoction which was quite sharp but very refreshing! We finished our meal and still had an hour or so left before our 9 o'clock train so, after googling the best bars in Edinburgh, the Guardian's list directed us to an amazing place called The Bon Vivant on Thistle Street which also sells food and I wish we'd eaten here instead! I didn't manage to take any photos as my camera just couldn't handle the dim lighting, but the place was decorated so nicely and I'm determined to copy their candles that they place in empty alcohol bottles and allow the wax to drip down them! If you google the bar you can find a few images of what I'm taking about. The service and drinks were brilliant, if you're ever in Edinburgh you should definitely make a visit! We only had time to order one cocktail before we hopped back on the train at 9 o'clock and I was rather exhausted after walking around for so long. I had a wonderful day in Edinburgh and I've really enjoyed writing a post about travel, hopefully I'll feature more very soon on my blog!
Have you ever been to Edinburgh before? Where are your favourite places to visit there?
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