An Afternoon in Edinburgh

On our way back from Lerwick to England (and work), we decided to stop off at Edinburgh. We arrived just in time (or 10mins early) for lunch at 'Always Sunday'. After asking a couple of times when lunch would be served, the wait staff would tell us "oh it's gonna be worth the wait", "you won't be sorry" etc. Boy were they right. When we ordered the pumpkin and mozzarella lasagne, the guy serving us said "oh good choice - any day with pumpkin and mozzarella lasagne is a good day!" He was so excited for us. It was indeed fantastic and we left hoping to live there just so we could eat that lasagne every day for the year.

Now that lunch was over, we had the remaining afternoon to conquer the Royal Mile. Beginning with Edinburgh Castle. Although the travel guides suggested that you could spend hours here, we managed it in under one. The outside of it was amazing, as was the view. The inside was less spectacular, with fairly bare rooms. The Hall was really interesting though, with swords, guns, shields, etc, lining the walls. The crown jewels were worth the long walk explaining the history to get to them.

After Edinburgh Castle, we went to the National Gallery, from which we could see the Scott Monument, which later that night was a dark, spooky shadow in the middle of town. It came in handy for navigational purposes however. The National Gallery held some famous works by Cezanne, Degas, Monet and Raphael.

We then made the unwise decision to go to the Whisky Heritage Centre. Surely no visit to Scotland is complete without whisky?! After smelling the whisky lip balm (ewww), we decided to taste the whisky. I coughed and spluttered after the tiniest of sips. The lady then asked me what I thought and looked offended when I said that I didn't like it! I tried to make up for this by offering that "it's very warming though", but it seemed that it was too little too late. Funnily enough, after the Whisky Centre, we went to the awesome Fudge Kitchen, where the girl suggested that we not get the whisky fudge (as if we were considering it!) because frankly "it tastes like shit". There's honesty for you. She told us that there was recently a fudge making contest and someone had entered with Marmite flavour, shockingly not winning the competition.

It was nearly closing time in Edinburgh, so with half an hour remaining, we went to check out the Childhood Museum. This was a little too spooky for our liking, so we continued on up the road to Holyrood Palace. Unfortunately we arrived just as the gates were being locked. We did make it in time to check out the gift shop however, where there were Will and Kate commemorative tea cups that I did not purchase (sorry Mum). And there ended our whirlwind trip up the Royal Mile.