Flying back to Sweden tomorrow morning, so this will be the final day in the city.
Yesterday was relaxed. Went from the castle to Carlton hotel in Edinburgh. The hotel has a pool, a sauna and a relax area. The pool was cold, but still nice. Took a walk after that, and then had a dinner at an American restaurant. The reason to that? We wanted to have salad and that isn't something that Scottish restaurants have lots of.
We will now take a hop on/off bus to see the whole city.
Our hotel was located close to Greyfriars church. The church itself isn't that impressive, but the graveyard around it is very old and odd if you compare to what you normally see in other countries.
Lots of graves and tombs decorated with skulls, bones and other things that look macabre.
Everything that could be considered as haunted is also very popular in Edinburgh. One section of the graveyard is only open during night time when a haunted tour goes there.
We have so far stayed at Hotel du Vin & Bistro in the old town of Edinburgh. It's a very good hotel, I can really recommend it, but who doesn't want to spend a night at a Scottish castle? We are now going to Dalhousie Castle on the countryside. Will spend one night there, and also try their restaurant down in the dungeons.
There are some vaults under the south bridge in the old town. Sounds like they should be visible from the street, but they aren't since the bridge actually is built at the current street level. The bridge looks like a normal street. The vaults were used several hundred years ago.
First by the stores next to the street. The stores used them for storage, but workers were also producing goods down there. The vaults were however not water proof, so the storage owners abandoned them. Next to use the vaults were thiefs like body snatchers, but also homeless people. The city council got tired of the problems and filled the vaults with materials from torn down buildings. The vaults were abandoned and forgotten about for several hundred years, but were rediscovered in 1980. They dug them out, and opened for tourists in 1994. Very cool.
Visited Edinburgh Castle today. Rented an audio guide there, and it was well worth the money. Walked around for about 2 hours and listened to the history of the castle and Scotland. You will get a great view of Edinburgh from the castle since it's located on top of a rock/hill.
Arrived there early, so didn't have to queue much, but lots of people were queueing when we left around noon.
Naming a street cockburn is so odd. Aren't there any better names?
Another odd thing is that it looks like the people in Edinburgh are obsessed with Christmas. It's mid October, and lots of places are already announcing that Christmas soon is here.
It was a while since I last blogged. Have done a few trips during that period, but was too lazy to blog about them. Might be some blogging during this trip.
Arrived yesterday. It's a short flight from Sweden but had to get up at 4:45 AM i order to catch a flight at 8 AM.
The forecast for Edinburgh was rain, and that's what we got during the first day. We had brought umbrellas, so it didn't bother us much.
We are currently staying in the old town, looks like a lovely place.
We spent a couple of hours in a huge museum that had a section on the history of Scotland and a section on technology, evolution and animals. Was awesome and could have worked with children as well.
