Scotland, part 1

After some time, I finally got a chance to go somewhere I haven’t been before. A friend invited me to come along on a trip to Scotland. The invitation couldn’t have come at a better time, as I wasn’t in the best place at that time and I needed something exactly like that to get away for a bit, to forget about my problems.

Our trip started just over two months ago, in February. First, we got to Edinburgh, where we stayed for 4 days. Because we got there quite late at night, we only took a short walk, to stretch our legs a bit and see some sights. Over the rest of the days there, the weather was absolutely amazing! Apart from some clouds covering the sun every now and then, it was sunny all the time, which we all know is not something many places in the UK would be known for. 😀

The first morning we spent at a small but cosy place called The Breakfast Club, as you might have guessed, to get breakfast. 😀 The food there was really good for my taste, and in my opinion not too expensive. I would really recommend the place to anyone who wants to try the authentic Scottish Breakfast. During our walk around the city we visited Edinburgh University and its campus, which was absolutely amazing, then went on to see the National Museum of Scotland and other sights along the way, which are numerous in a city that old and that historically significant. When we entered the National Museum, where by the way, you can go in free of charge, but you can make a donation and give something back to the museum, at least a little bit, I was mesmerized by the sheer size of the museum. The same thing applies to most of the other museums in Scotland, having free entrance I mean, but you can decide to donate some money on your own. Currently I work at a history museum here in Ljubljana, which is not that big even for Slovenian standards, and I do have to say that I haven’t visited a lot of other museums, so just the size of it took me by surprise at first, as I’ve said already. But I still thought this museum was incredible, even though we just walked through it relatively quickly that first time, because we still had so many things to see that day. We returned to the museum two more times in the following days, and even so, we didn’t get to see all of it, so I would strongly advise anyone thinking of visiting it to clear their schedule and really take their time to see the exhibits, especially if you’re visiting during winter, when they’re open from 10am to 5pm.

Probably the best thing that day, at least for me it turned out that way, was a guided tour of the city. I will write about that in a separate post, which I’ll be posting shortly after this one.

The next day we went to visit the Edinburgh Castle, which also astonished me with its size and what it looks like. At first I thought the entrance fee, we paid £17.00, was a little high, but after entering the castle and spending those 3.5 hours there, I realized it was well worth it. We could’ve been there even longer, if we really took our time reading everything. On the way back to our place, we stopped at St. Giles’ Cathedral, which even from the outside looks stunning, but when you enter, it stuns you even more. Definitely one of the must-see places in the city.

For our final day, we decided to visit the Palace of Holyroodhouse, where the royal family stays during their visit of Edinburgh. You can walk up one of the most famous streets in the city, the Royal Mile, starting from the palace, and it will lead you all the way to the Castle on the other end. There’s lots of small shops, restaurants and cafe’s on the Royal Mile, so I’m sure anyone could find something for themselves on it. We also wanted to hike up the Arthur’s Seat, but ended up on Calton Hill in the end, because of our lack of time again. 😀

Our apartment was relatively close to the city centre, so during those days there, we only took one bus ride, everywhere else we decided to go, we walked. That did save us a few pounds, but it was easier to get to know the city that way and since the weather was so beautiful, we didn’t have to worry about getting wet by the rain.

So, to conclude this post, I would say that Edinburgh is well worth the time spent there. There were some nerve-racking moments, as any time you go to a new city, but we managed to deal with them and everything turned out just great. 🙂 More about the rest of the trip, and some other things I left out in this post, will follow in the next days. 🙂