Exploring the essence of Edinburgh

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Exploring the essence of Edinburgh

Monday 12th November:

I woke up bright and early, had some breakfast then made my way to Manchester. I arrived at Manchester Piccadilly train station just before 9.00am. I then met up with my sister Helen. She arrived a little earlier and was already sat on a bench waiting for me. I said to Helen that I hope she hadn't waited too long.

We both were feeling excited about our short break to the lovely city of Edinburgh. Helen has visited Edinburgh several times and has told me previously about her love for the city and its special beauty. Some of my friends who have visited the city before have also told me that it is a lovely place full of history, beautiful architecture and cobbled pavements. It is a place that has its own distinctive and unique personality. I was therefore looking forward to being a tourist - finding out, discovering and exploring the essence of Edinburgh for myself.

The train station was very busy but the atmosphere was nice. I've always liked the thought that so many people of different age groups, backgrounds and cultures are all travelling to and from different places around the country throughout the day. Some of these people are just commuting to and from work, some are travelling for business purposes and some are just travelling for leisure. I think it's nice that so many different people are brought together at a certain place and at a certain moment in time with the same objective of going somewhere. It's quite a special and lovely thought.

We collected our pre-paid train tickets from the self-service ticket machine. We had to insert into the machine the card used for payment and then type in our booking reference number. 7 items were dispensed. This consisted of our return travel tickets, seat reservations and our receipt. I placed them securely into my train ticket pass holder/wallet ready for inspection later.

We had a brief walk around the shops in the station. We nipped to Sainsbury's supermarket and bought some snacks for our 3 and a 1/2 hours train journey to Edinburgh. We bought some Haribo sweets, Walkers prawn cocktail crisps and a big bar of Galaxy chocolate to share. They are all of my favourite snacks. I also bought myself an egg and tomato baguette for lunch later on. Helen bought herself a halloumi cheese and sun dried tomato bagel. It looked yummy!

We boarded our train just before 10.16am, placed some of our luggage in the overhead racks then settled comfortably in our seats. We played a few games of Hangman to pass the time. I had a flick through my Edinburgh travel guide books. I had borrowed them from my local library in preparation for my trip. I was planning on what to do, what to see and where to go in Edinburgh.

I wanted to visit an interesting tourist attraction called Arthur's Seat. I have been told that it is an extinct volcano. To reach the top, my travel books said that it involves a big climb and is only really suitable for the able-bodied. However, if you do manage to reach to the top, the view of Edinburgh from high above would be spectacular and the whole experience would be very worthwhile. I said to Helen that I would like to go there if we have enough time and if the weather is okay for it. I wouldn't want to go there if it was raining heavily.

During our train journey, I kept looking outside the window. I saw a lot of hills in the distance. It reminded me a little of Switzerland. The only exceptions were that there was no blue sky and no pretty houses with flowers built on the hills. I remember visiting Switzerland last Summer on holiday. It's such a beautiful and picturesque place - a place that gives me the feeling that when I'm there I feel like I'm standing within the picture of a beautiful postcard. Everything is just perfect in every way - the weather, the attractive scenery and the relaxed welcoming atmosphere. I really would like to go there again. Maybe in the future, I will have the opportunity to visit the country once again and see the beautiful hills, lakes, rivers and most importantly the spectacular Rhine Falls. That is just breathtaking.

Going back to my train journey...as we were going up a little higher up the ground, I felt that my ears had popped once or twice. It was a little unexpected but it did really happen!

I saw lots of sheep in the distance. As we went passed a different farm, I noticed the sheep had a different coloured stamp/marking on their fleeces. Some sheep from one farm had a pink marking, some sheep from another farm had a blue marking and some others had a green marking. I assume it's like a code for the farmers just so that they can recognise and know who the sheep belong to just in case they get lost in the hills!

The weather seemed to be a little unsettled and kept changing as we went passed several different towns. As we approached Scotland, the sky looked very cloudy, grey and miserable. I made a wish and prayed that it didn't rain heavily. I felt that if the weather was significantly bad it would potentially spoil our sightseeing trip and our plans to go for some nice walks.

We arrived at Edinburgh Waverley train station just before 2.00pm. After stepping out of the station, we had to make our way to the hotel. It was supposedly a 10 minute walk but somehow it took us much longer as we went the wrong way. I used the Google Maps app on my phone but it seemed to have let us down and we went the opposite direction.

During our walk to the hotel, I saw a lot of roadworks. We were walking along the famous Princes Street within Edinburgh city centre but part of the street and neighbouring roads were dug up. I was told that it has been like this for several years now as they are building a new tram line. Many roads were closed off and there were diversions in place. It wasn't a very welcoming sight. I was disappointed with this and felt it was a very bad first impression of Edinburgh. However, I thought to myself I have to give the city a chance and not rule out my potential love for the city and its renowned beauty just yet.

After a fairly simple check-in process at the hotel, we took the lift to the 4th floor and went to our room. Our room number was 418. We unpacked our luggage, settled for a short while with a cup of tea then freshened up. We decided to go exploring and commence our interesting tourist activities.

We left the room and walked passed the hotel bar. I looked through the windows and I could see a lovely and striking view of Edinburgh castle. I felt our hotel was in a fabulous location. It was directly opposite the castle on Princes Street and was within easy reach of everything else.

We had a lovely walk along Princes Street. It is one of the main streets in Edinburgh with major high street stores including Boots, Debenhams, Frasers, Marks & Spencer and Topshop.

We saw the Scott Monument, the Royal Scottish Academy and some large banking institutions. The architecture of all the different monuments, buildings and churches were amazing. They all had a very historic and distinctive feeling to them, some of which had a very gothic theme too.

We went passed a shop selling traditional and retro candy, sweets and drinks. There was a lovely and attractive window display showcasing a variety of fizzy sweet drinks and cereals. It looked very nice, appealing and colourful.

There was a lot of specialist shops selling Scottish gifts and souvenirs. One particular shop called Pride of Scotland caught my eye. It attracted my attention as there were several snow globes within the window display. They looked very nice. I wanted to buy a lovely snow globe to add to my beautiful collection at home. I saw a really nice Edinburgh Castle themed snow globe so I bought it. It cost me £9.99 but was worth every single penny. There was a lot of tartan gifts and kilts for sale. There were designs suitable for both men and women.

We also visited a souvenir shop called Romanes & Paterson - The Edinburgh Woollen Mill. The retail staff were very polite, friendly and welcoming. They were wearing kilts as their staff uniform. We spent over an hour in the shop. I was looking at all the different varieties of shortbread that was available to purchase. There was so much choice. I bought some sheep and Scottish dog shaped shortbread biscuits. They were very cute! I also bought some plain shortbread rounds, mini chocolate chip cookies and strawberry and cream flavoured cookies. They looked very yummy. I felt they were nice small gifts for some of my friends and my family.

I also bought some Scottish fudge and haggis. My special friend Paul said he wanted to try some haggis so I bought him 2 varieties - one plain haggis and one flavoured with Scottish whisky. On the packaging it said it is a 'traditional haggis in a skin made with the finest ingredients'. The ingredients were down as lamb offal, suet, oatmeal, onions, water, salt and pepper. It sounds nice but I would never try haggis myself. I don't really fancy eating a sheep's internal organs. Paul has been teasing me and has said that there may be some eyeballs in the tin as well. I have been feeling too afraid to peep through the boxed packaging!

The shop had a variety of souvenirs and gifts including Celtic jewellery, bags, calendars, Edinburgh rock and bottles of malt whisky. They had a lot of cashmere scarves, gloves and jumpers. They were very, very soft to touch. Some were very expensive. Helen bought a few scarves for her friends and a cashmere jumper for our dad. They were very nice. I bought 2 pairs of gloves - one for Helen and one for my special friend Emma.

A lady stood outside a little sweet shop called Henley's was holding a plate of pink bon bons. She was handing them out to potential customers as they walked passed. She gave us a bon bon each to try. As I have a sweet tooth, I thought it tasted very nice. We went inside the sweet shop and had a look round. It was like an old sweet shop with lots of jars of traditional sweets. There were some special Rock Shot bottles. There was a variety to choose from containing different flavoured Edinburgh rock. The lady in the shop described to me how the concept works. She told me you have to pour alcohol into the bottle then let the rock dissolve. The whole concept is exclusive to Henley's and is supposedly an alcoholic sensation that you would not believe or could ever imagine!

Helen bought some sweets. I bought some little lollipops. They looked very nice. Some of my lollipops were heart shaped and some were in the shape of a star. I've always loved heart and star shaped goods. I therefore thought the lollipops looked lovely and would be really nice for my friends.

We came across Ryan's Bar, Coffee Shop and The Cellar Restaurant. It looked the nicest local eatery in the area. It was decorated on the outside with Christmas trees, festive wreaths and coloured lights. It looked very Christmassy and had a really nice magical feel to it. We decided we would have our evening meal there.

The bar had a nice busy atmosphere. The Cellar Restaurant itself wasn't that busy. I think it may have been a little quiet with it being a Monday evening. I think it is popular with tourists as it has recently been awarded the Trip Advisor Certificate for Excellence 2012 with a 4 star rating. The restaurant seemed to have a lovely, intimate and romantic feel with its own distinctive character and setting.

Pianists usually provide the entertainment for all diners in the restaurant. However, there wasn't a pianist during our visit. It would have been really nice if there was as I have always loved and enjoyed listening to both live and pre-recorded piano music. I think the people who can play beautiful piano pieces are very musically talented. I really admire those people.

We had our own little area/room inside The Cellar Restaurant that was lit by a small candle. There were some painted tree designs on the wall. They were very detailed and specific. I thought they looked very nice.

We decided to have the 2 courses for £15 meal deal. Helen had a vegetable soup for starter. For our main course, we both had an 8oz centre cut, well done sirloin steak with diane sauce, chunky chips and cherry tomatoes. It was delicious!

For dessert, I had a panacotta served with a crème de menthe, martini coulis and pan fried strawberries. It was in a martini glass and looked very nice and appetising. I enjoyed eating the panacotta very much.

The bill including our tip came to about £40. We were given a £5 voucher to redeem against any future visit where the bill is more than £20. We thought that this may come in handy. It could be redeemed in the coffee shop, bar or the restaurant. After a lovely, enjoyable and pleasant evening, we decided to go back to the hotel to rest so that we would feel energetic for the following day.

Tuesday 13th November:

After a nice relaxing sleep, we left the hotel and decided to go back to Ryan's for breakfast. I ordered a cup of latte and Helen ordered a cup of cappuccino. As there was so much choice on the breakfast menu, I couldn't really decide what to have. I wanted to try both the French toast and the million dollar pancakes. They both sounded nice but I couldn't really order them both for myself! Helen felt a bit indecisive too so we therefore decided to order them both but just share the items between us.

After a short wait, our breakfast arrived. The French toast was served with crispy bacon and maple syrup. The pancakes were accompanied with a bowl of fresh strawberries compote. They looked and tasted delicious.

Whilst we were having our breakfast, we were looking through the windows and watching the world go by. It was a great place for people watching as the coffee shop was located on the corner of a very busy road. We could see a lot of people making their way to work. It felt nice that we weren't going to work but instead just relaxing and enjoying ourselves on our little girlie trip.

There weren't many tourists in the area. I think this is probably because the middle of November isn't really the tourist season. Edinburgh is most popular with tourists during the month of August when the Edinburgh Military Tattoo is held. It's a popular annual festival that takes place at the castle with military bands and dancers performing a wonderful show. I've heard that there is a spectacular, stunning and unmissable firework display as part of the festival too.

After a lovely and filling breakfast, we had a walk to the New Town area. We had a walk through Charlotte Square and I captured on my camera some of the autumnal scenes that we saw. There was a lot of government buildings in the area.

We had a walk through Princes Street gardens. I took some photographs of the castle in the distance, the fountain and the trees. It was lovely. The gardens were very nice. I thought to myself it would look really nice in the springtime or during the summer when the flowers are in bloom. It must be very popular and busy during them times as people will be having picnics, going for walks and just relaxing in the sunshine.

I remembered reading in my travel guide books that there is a floral clock but we didn't see it. I think it must have been on the other side of the gardens that we didn't walk to. We did see a war memorial though. With it being Remembrance Sunday a few days ago, the war memorial was decorated with some lovely poppy wreaths.

We made our way towards the castle. The path that we walked on was quite steep. I felt a little breathless walking up the path. I think I need to do more exercise!

With all the excitement heading towards the castle, I accidentally dropped my camera onto the pavement. The battery from my camera fell out. I panicked and was worried that my camera had broken and all my beautiful photos that I had taken were lost. I put the battery back in the camera then turned it back on. Luckily, it was working fine and my photos were safe. Phew!

After a short walk, we arrived at the castle grounds. We took some photographs outside the castle. It was lovely although I did feel that the castle wasn't as nice as other castles that I've seen elsewhere.

After buying tickets to the castle and walking through the entrance, we went inside. We stopped by the cannons and took lots of photographs of each other posing and pretending to fire them!

We looked at the panoramic view of the city of Edinburgh from high above. We could see the sea in the distance too. It was very nice and it was a stunning scene. Some of the brown and historic buildings below reminded me a little of my visit to Rome last year. That brought back some very special memories of mine.

We visited The Whisky Shop within the castle grounds. There were some novelty and miniature barrels of whisky. Helen bought some for her friends. I wish I had bought some too. They were very unique. In the glass display cabinets, there were some very expensive bottles of whisky. They were very valuable costing several thousands of pounds just for one single bottle!

We went to see the Royal Apartments, the Great Hall and the Scottish Crown Jewels. There was a sign saying that no cameras or camcorders were allowed to be used inside the rooms displaying the jewels. The royal jewels looked very prestigious. I could see the beautiful sparkle in them. As the jewels are very valuable and need to be protected from potential theft, there were vault doors to the rooms. They looked like big safes and reminded me a little of what you sometimes see in banks.

It was a very cold and windy day. I thought to myself that I could not stay or live in Scotland permanently. It would be far too cold for me. I wanted to keep my hands warm so I reached into my coat pocket to get my gloves. Next minute, my Edinburgh castle entrance ticket fell out of my pocket then blew away. I wanted to keep my ticket as a special memento of my visit so I had to run around the courtyard to try and chase it! I felt a bit silly and Helen was just laughing at me. She wished she had filmed me on her phone of me running around like a lunatic chasing my ticket!

We went inside the coffee shop and joined the queue to buy a hot drink. All of a sudden, some people started to run out. It was almost 1.00pm. The famous one o'clock gun was about to start. We ran out of the coffee shop too and secured a good viewing spot. Everyone was eagerly waiting for the military time gun to fire. We didn't know what to expect or when it was going to happen. There was patience and silence amongst the crowd. Within a few seconds, there was a very loud and powerful bang. Everyone jumped a little. The gun had fired and there was a little plume of smoke. It was amazing.

After visiting the castle, we had a little walk along the Royal Mile and the Grassmarket area. We walked passed famous tourist attractions including the Scotch Whisky Heritage Centre and Camera Obscura - World of Illusions. There were some funny mirrors along the wall. We went inside the Camera Obscura gift shop and had a look round. There was a wide range of optical illusion themed novelty gifts, toys, souvenirs, jewellery, Scottish fudge and Edinburgh rock.

We walked along the cobbled streets and saw a lot of shops selling kilts, cashmere scarves, gloves and clothing. We walked passed a man performing on the street. He was wearing a kilt and was playing on his bagpipe.

We came across The Elephant House. It is a small gourmet tea and coffee place that claims to be the birthplace of Harry Potter. It is one of the places where the author JK Rowling supposedly sat for hours with a coffee and wrote her books. We had a look inside through the window. It did look quite busy but I think it has just become famous with all the Harry Potter hype. I believe the toilets are just graffitied with messages and comments by passionate Harry Potter fans.

We had a look at the menu outside The Elephant House. It was about £4.50 for a cup of coffee. I thought to myself that it was quite expensive just for a hot drink. However, I think the owner can set these high prices. True Harry Potter fans most likely would be willing to pay these high prices just to spend time at the place where their Harry Potter story/journey supposedly began. I know that so many people love the story, the books, the films and all the magic that it has brought to many people and their lives.

We visited a lovely little shop called Enchanted. It looked very beautiful and seemed to have a lovely vintage and magical feel to it. There was a lovely angel wings decoration, a unicorn and some pretty flowers in a vase in the window. I loved the pastel colours used in the display. It was a very attractive window display and captured our attention immediately. We both thought it looked very nice.

After further walking, we felt very tired. Our legs were aching and we were desperate for a rest. It took us a long time just to find a resting place. We saw Starbucks in the distance and our eyes lit up! We had a sausage barm and a refreshing cup of tea. We relaxed on the comfy sofa seats for a short while until we had recharged our batteries!

We had a brief walk to St. James Shopping Centre and the Princes Mall. There were many high street chain stores and a large food court. We went into the Yankee Scotland candle shop and had a look at all the candles and gift sets. The fragrance in the shop was really lovely. It smelt very nice, pleasant and alluring.

The sun had set and it was late evening. We walked towards the Usher Hall. It is one of the main venues for orchestra, musical concerts and family shows. I saw some camera crew filming an advert for a show. There was a pretty young lady wearing a beautiful dress. She looked lovely just like a princess. A lady amongst the film crew spoke to me and told me I should watch the show. She said she highly recommends it although she did not tell me the name of the show!

The weather turned for the worse and it started to rain quite heavily. It became very cold. We just went to McDonald's for something to eat. We had a filet meal, some chicken nuggets to share and a strawberry milkshake. We then went back to the hotel to rest after a lovely but tiring day. I said to Helen that I haven't done this much walking in a very long time!

Wednesday 14th November:

We woke up nice and early and went to Ryan's again. The lady that served us was very nice, friendly and polite. We ordered a pot of tea and a full Scottish vegetarian breakfast each. I didn't fancy having the normal Scottish breakfast as I didn't want the black pudding that was included. I wouldn't be able to eat it. I therefore decided to go for the vegetarian option instead.

My Scottish vegetarian breakfast consisted of 1 slice of thick toast with butter, scrambled egg, beans, mushrooms, 2 vegetarian sausages, 2 potato cakes, 2 hash browns and some tomatoes. It was a very generous portion. It was very nice and filling.

The cake fridge looked lovely. We decided to order 2 of the strawberry shortcake cookies for take out. They looked a bit like shortbread with some sugar sprinkled on the top. They were homemade and were just perfect.

We didn't have much time left to spend in Edinburgh as train tickets for our journey home had been booked for the afternoon. We therefore had to utilise our remaining time. We had a walk passed the Edinburgh dungeons and the Edinburgh Military Tattoo ticket office.

We took a short cut and walked to the Royal Mile again. We saw another lovely gift shop called The Scotsman and browsed at all the interesting gifts. There was a lot more unusual gifts in this shop. We liked it very much. I bought a lovely Edinburgh castle souvenir for my mum and bought a little bagpipe souvenir for myself. It plays a lovely musical tune and is very nice.

On our way back to the hotel, we saw several open air sightseeing tour buses. We looked at the sightseeing tour highlights on the promotional board. I told Helen that we had already seen the majority of the main city centre attractions ourselves by foot. We were quite pleased and impressed that we managed to see so much in the time we had.

It started to rain very heavily. We went back to the hotel, packed our luggage and got ready to leave. We both had a lot of things to carry. I had my suitcase, my handbag and 2 additional bags containing Scottish souvenirs and gifts. It was quite difficult carrying them all as they were quite bulky and heavy.

We checked out of the hotel just before 12.00pm. I did request a later check out time but the lady working on reception said she was unable to extend our check out time. She said it is their company policy that all guests vacate their rooms by 12.00pm. This is to provide the cleaners with sufficient time to clean, tidy and prepare the rooms for the next set of guests.

As we left the hotel, we heard several loud bangs. We looked high above and saw it was coming from the castle. A 21 royal gun salute was taking place. It was to mark a very special occasion. It was to celebrate the birthday of the Prince of Wales - Prince Charles. Helen counted the number of times we heard the gun fire. It was about 14 times. We must have just missed the beginning. We were so lucky to witness this as we did not expect it. It was an awesome, amazing and spectacular experience watching it from below the castle. It was a lovely and perfect ending to our trip.

After watching the royal salute, we walked to the train station. Helen sat on a bench whilst I had a brief look around the shops. I went into WHSmith and looked at some of the Scottish themed key-rings and novelty gifts. I particularly liked the lipstick pen on display. It looked very sparkly and pretty!

I also went to the Millie's Cookies kiosk. I really liked the Millie's Cookies celebration cakes. They had iced writing on them saying 'I love Edinburgh' and 'Happy journey, Love Millie'. They made me smile. I bought Helen a mini cookie cupcake as a little surprise present for her. It was decorated with a pretty red rose on the top. It was very nice and she liked it very much.

We departed Edinburgh just shortly after 2.00pm for our train back to Manchester.

Overall, I had a nice little break in Edinburgh. It's a lovely city with lots of historical monuments and statues. The castle as a backdrop is beautiful in itself. It's not a scene that I see every day!

The cashmere, Scottish shortbread, whisky, haggis, kilts and bagpipe music all make up the beautiful essence and character of Edinburgh. This makes the city unique and distinctive from other places.

If I was to visit Edinburgh again, I would like to go to Edinburgh Zoo to see the lovely pandas. That would be really nice. I also would like to go to the Royal Botanic Gardens and visit the beautiful Palace of Holyrood House. They are regarded as top attractions that tourists shouldn't really miss.

I think visiting Edinburgh during the Christmas celebrations would be really fun. I believe they display a beautiful Norwegian Christmas tree at The Mound. They also have an Edinburgh Wheel, an ice rink and lots of Christmas markets selling a variety of festive goods and treats.

The festive activities and celebrations this year are only expected to commence at the end of November. We did see some preparations as they were building a temporary stage at Princes Street Gardens in readiness. I am sure the atmosphere would be fantastic during the celebrations. Maybe when I have the opportunity, I will visit this lovely city again in the not so distant future.

Thank-you very much for taking the time and patience to read my blog. I hope you enjoyed it!

Please take a look at some of the photos that I have specially selected for this blog. I hope you like them!

Goodbye 😊

Much love and best wishes to you.

Yee Wah x

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Comments

[Emma monks]

Really enjoyed reading about your trip to Edinburgh :-)