New Town and Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh

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Today was a short day. We left Leeds after breakfast and took a taxi to the train station. We took the 9:12am train to York, then transferred to the 9:55am train to Edinburgh. I spent the entire train ride trying to catch up on my blog writing and photo uploading. The wi-fi kept cutting in and out so my blog is still going to be a few days behind. Sgh.

We arrived in Edinburgh at about 12:30pm, went to the ticket kiosk to collect our tickets for Thursday (to Windermere), then got a taxi to our hotel, the St. Valery Guest House on Coates Gardens. Once again we are staying on the top floor (why do I pack so much???), but at least it’s only the 3rd floor instead of the 5th like in London (actually we’re on the 2nd floor…in the UK the ground floor doesn’t count)

We got settled in and then headed out to explore the New Town part of Edinburgh (we’re saving Old Town for tomorrow). The main street next to our hotel runs into Princes Street, so we wandered down that way to Princes Street Gardens. The weather forecast was rain but it was really nice when we got here so there were tons of people in the park, eating ice cream, reading books, and lazing about. We took some photos of the castle up on the hill and then walked to the Mound and back up to the main street.

There are lots of shops in New Town (including two shopping centers, one on each side), so we went in a few and then walked down Hanover Street and ate at the Jekyll & Hyde Pub. The place is really cool inside, with ghoulish photos and mad scientist-looking displays. The toilets are hidden behind a fake set of bookshelves, so if you don’t already know this, you might have some trouble finding them. I had fish and chips (much better than the ones I had in London) and a pint of T (Scottish beer).

After we finished eating, we wandered further up the street to take more pictures, then turned and walked back up George Street back to the hotel.

Tomorrow is the main day in Edinburgh, when we’ll tackle the Royal Mile. The Queen is here hosting a garden party at Holyroodhouse, so we won’t be able to go inside. I guess our invite got lost in the post.

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Comments

[Michael]

You should hire locals to carry your luggage, it's what the English used to do when travelling abroad :) The Jekyll and Hyde pub looks cool! I think all the ones in England that were similar are slowly vanishing :( Did the toilets scream when you opened the door? I see your toilet obsession is in full swing again :D