I had the opportunity to go to Edinburgh for a math conference. The conference was a lot of fun, and I loved visiting Scotland! I decided to arrive a few days early so that I could take time to explore. Unfortunately, I came down with a bad cold so I had pretty low energy during the conference, but I was able to get a lot of sightseeing in before that.
Day 1: I arrived at 7:05am in Glasgow Airport, absolutely exhausted, as my flight had left Seattle at 6:10am the day before. I grabbed a coffee at the airport Starbucks in a futile attempt to fuel myself for the day. I tried to buy a European SIM card, but the airport was out of them for some reason. Getting from the airport to Edinburgh is pretty easy. There are machines where you can buy a combined shuttle plus train ticket to Edinburgh – it shows you the schedules and everything. I believe the price was on the order of 19 pounds. The Airport Express shuttle is comfortable and has a lot of room for luggage. It drops you off at Dundas Street, a 9-minute walk from Queen Street Station. From there you can take a direct train to Edinburgh Waverly (about 45 minutes).
I walked to my hostel in Cowgate from the train station to drop my stuff off and get some recommendations for lunch. They told me I could walk 20 minutes to get to a cheap all-you-can-eat Asian buffet called Cosmo near the Omni Centre (a large shopping mall). They don’t open before noon, and even before opening a line forms. I would recommend this restaurant if you’re looking for a large quantity of decent, cheap food, but it’s nothing special. While I was sitting down to eat, I actually felt nauseous due to how tired I was. I promise it wasn’t the food.
My goal was to stay awake until 8pm so that I could properly adjust to the time difference. The key to this, I’ve found, is to just keep walking. If you’re walking, you can’t fall asleep. I walked to Calton Hill which is near Cosmo and has great views of the city. There is a tower that you can pay to climb, but I felt that it was unnecessary. I have heard that pagan festivals are sometimes celebrated on the hill, so that might be interesting if you’re in town at the right time! From there I walked to the Palace of Holyroodhouse. I think I enjoyed this more than Edinburgh Castle, which is the main castle-like tourist attraction of the city. Holyrood is the official residence of the Queen in Scotland, and it carries a lot of history. You can visit the apartments inhabited by Mary, Queen of Scots and see the remains of an ancient abbey outside. The roof is completely blown off and only the walls remain; it is haunting and beautiful.
From there I headed to the Scottish Parliament nearby, which is open to the public. The building is architecturally worth a visit. I was lucky and managed to arrive while parliament was in session. These meetings are also open to the public, which I think is a great way to build government transparency. I don’t remember if I hiked up Arthur’s Seat (a famous Edinburgh hike up an extinct volcano) or not, I was that delirious, but the hike starts right next to Parliament. I got back to the hostel and grabbed a Guinness and some sad hostel food (I had forgotten how outrageously good Guinness in the UK is!) before going to sleep.
Day 2: Today was full tourist day. I had slept well and was ready to go. I decided to run up Arthur’s Seat for my morning run. To do this, I went down the Royal Mile, the street in Edinburgh that goes from Edinburgh Castle to Holyrood and probably contains the highest density of tourists in the city. Since I went somewhat early in the morning, it wasn’t very busy. Running up Arthur’s Seat wasn’t as bad as I thought. There is a sidewalk following a paved road that goes up the hill at a more gradual incline. I still had to stop to catch my breath a couple of times. At some point the pavement stops and the path goes straight up, so at this point my run transitioned into a hike. It was a great hilly run with incredible views. I think the total distance was about 6 miles.
I then went on a mission to try haggis for the first time at Oink, a Scottish pulled pork sandwich chain that has a variety of different spreads and sauces. I didn’t realize it, but people in Scotland eat haggis all the time. It’s also not really a main meal. You could have a small haggis cake as part of breakfast, you can use it as a spread, or you can make pretty much anything haggis flavored (I tried Mackie’s haggis-flavored potato chips -w ould not recommend). I got a sandwich with haggis spread – it added a delicious earthy flavor to the pork. I was surprised by how much I liked haggis!
Hunger sated, I headed off to the Scotch Whisky Experience Tour near Edinburgh Castle. Yes, it is exactly as touristy as it sounds, but I learned a lot about whisky and thoroughly enjoyed doing it. I did the Gold Tour, which was 24 pounds and included 5 half pours of whisky for tasting. I would recommend reserving your ticket in advance online, since it’s quite popular. After the tour you can go to the bar and drink more whisky, which of course I did.
After drinking, I tipsily boarded a bus to Portobello Beach in search of fish and chips. My online sleuthing had revealed that St. Andrews Restaurant had excellent fish and chips at reasonable prices. I was not disappointed, but for some reason when I arrived the restaurant was super empty. I ordered an Irn Bru (Scotland’s favorite soft drink, which tastes like straight up orange sugar) and a tea. The waiter must have thought I was pretty weird… On a warmer day I might have taken my fish and chips to-go and eaten them on the beach.
I think I also visited the National Gallery of Scotland, which has free admission. It’s right next to the Scott Monument, the largest literary monument of it’s size (in honor of Sir Walter Scott), and I definitely walked past that a few times.
Day 3: I was itching to get out of the city and experience some nature. I did some research on hikes accessible via public transit from Edinburgh and heard that Dunkeld and Birnam, two adjacent small towns in the south Highlands, were the start of some great hikes. It’s a 2 hour train ride from Edinburgh to Birnam if you take the correct trains. The towns themselves have a lot of history. Dunkeld was founded in the 800s by the Picts. For a time, the Dunkeld Cathedral was the seat of the church in Eastern Scotland, and there were some famous battles with the Jacobites there. In more recent history, Beatrix Potter’s family had a summer home in Birnam, which is where she wrote the first draft of “The Tale of Peter Rabbit.” There’s a nice museum and park dedicated to her. The nearby woods contain the Birnam Oak, believed to be the only remaining tree from the Birnam Wood referenced in Macbeth. The town and the cathedral are worth a visit if you’re in the area.
I did the Birnam Hill loop, which was a favorite short hike of Beatrix Potter. I did it in the opposite direction, which I recommend:
https://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/perthshire/birnam-hill.shtml
The trailhead starts very close to the train station – you have to turn left immediately before walking under a bridge.
It was a little confusing to find, but a local was able to help me. The trail started out pretty steep but soon led to some wonderful views. The slope on the way down was more gradual. It wasn’t the most amazing hike I’ve ever been on, but I enjoyed it a lot. I ran into a “ramblers group” (a group for folks who get together on weekends to hike) who took my picture for me.
After the hike, I met up with an old friend for dinner and drinks in Edinburgh. We went to Rose Street, which is a street lined with restaurants. A lot of locals like to go there for dinner. We ended up at Mussel Inn, which was delicious. Afterwards we went to Sygn Bar, a hip bar with cocktails including ingredients as varied as gummy bears, glitter, and candy floss. I wasn’t a huge fan of the gummy bears drink, but the other cocktails were good and the bar had a very fun atmosphere. My friend told me that the area around Sygn Bar has a lot of other bars where locals like to drink, and it’s a lot less crazy than Cowgate.
Day 4: I felt that a trip to Scotland would be remiss without visiting the Highlands. To that end I booked the “Loch Ness, Glen Coe, and the Highlands” tour through Highland Experience Tours for 49 pounds:
http://www.highlandexperience.com/tours/edinburgh/Loch-ness-tour-scottish-highlands.htm
In some ways I’m glad I did it and in some ways not. The problem was that they crammed way too much Highland into the tour to properly enjoy any of it, and the majority of the time was spent on the tour bus because everything is so far away from each other. I do feel that it at the very least gave me an appreciation for the Highlands; they are so breathtakingly beautiful. I loved some of the more obscure places that we saw, like Rannoch Moor and Cairngorms; they had such interesting and unusual landscapes. I hope to go back and do some backpacking there.
Loch Ness was pretty uninteresting. It’s just a big lake, which is pretty, but there’s nothing to do there besides go on a really long ferry ride to a small castle. Due to our compressed tour we didn’t have time to see the castle, but I’ve heard that the castle isn’t that interesting.
Finally I got back to the hostel and moved all my stuff to the conference hotel. I listened to math talks for the rest of the week while trying not to get everyone else sick!
Flights: I booked an $867 roundtrip flight with American Airlines from Seattle to Glasgow with a layover in Philly. The flight was fine, and it was a reasonable price for summer.
Accommodations: Before the conference I stayed at the Budget Backpackers Hostel in Cowgate. I hadn’t stayed in a hostel in a while and realized that I just not into them anymore. I dislike having to lock my stuff up and carry all my stuff to the shower and bathroom and share the bathroom with other people. The hostel was (mostly) clean and included a downstairs bar and restaurant, as well as a vending machine with to-go food and drink items. However, their showers would not drain, so I was taking a shower in an inch of nasty water. Eew. The bathrooms were not super clean (probably due to the number of guests using them, though I think they were cleaned daily) and there was no AC. The hostel is located in Cowgate, which is one of the party areas of Edinburgh, so if you’re a light sleeper I would not recommend it. It’s pretty close to all of the tourist attractions.
During the conference, I was given a room at Masson House, Pollock Halls of Residence near Holyrood. These accommodations were fantastic; though after talking to my colleagues, I think I had one of the newer rooms. The room was spacious and included a desk. The only weird thing was that the shower didn’t have a door. Masson House has a restaurant with an extensive continental breakfast as well as an additional hot breakfast menu that you can order from for free. The food was much better than I expected: I really enjoyed the breakfast haggis and eating steamed tomatoes with breakfast! The cranachan (a traditional Scottish raspberry and cream dessert) was also fabulous.
Miscellaneous: The one thing I regret about my trip to Scotland is not trying a deep-fried Mars bar! I also accidentally walked by the Elephant Cafe, where J.K. Rowling spent a lot of her time writing Harry Potter. I didn’t feel that it was worth it to pay a high price or wait in line to get inside, so I took my touristy photo from the outside.
I also visited Edinburgh Castle during the conference. The crown jewels of Scotland are there, which was one of the highlights. However, the admission fee was quite expensive, and it was so huge that I was exhausted by the time we had gotten through it. We didn’t even see all of the museums. I would recommend picking and choosing what you want to see because there is simply too much. I feel like you can’t go to Edinburgh without visiting the castle, so I’m glad I did it.
WanderLiz 