Edinburgh Day 2

Wooooo weeeeeee, were we tiiiiireeed. We could not fall asleep and then we could not wake up. Time changes can be hard. But my brother is a shift worker and had way fewer issues with it. We slept in and then wandered over to Rose St. cafe for an 11am breakfast. The espresso coffee was delightfully delicious and we all had yummy Scottish breakfasts!

I have wanted to visit Scotland for so many years….I mean, my last name is McIver! But when my aunt Shirley sent me some of my family tree from my dad’s side, I learned that I have so many Scottish ancestors in the country on both my grandmother and grandfathers sides. It felt so good landing here in this place even though I’ve never been here. And having the customs guy ask about my family name and with no issues with pronunciation…now that was affirming.

Elden (my younger brother) really wanted to do a Dungeon tour which goes over some of the darkest history of Scotland like the scientists doing research on freshly dead bodies and how that lead to killing of innocent people. The corrupt courts and witch trials. The torcher, cannibalism, and the hiding away of people with the plague.

The actors were fantastic and they made it entertaining and as fun as possible to learn such a bad part of the Scottish story.

After the dungeons, Elden and Justine went to a bookshop where they found first edition signed novels from their favourite authors. We limit the amount of shopping because we are on this adventure with just carry-on luggage. We went on a hop on hop off double decker bus with a local tour guide narrating the ride. We sat up top with the good views and we stayed on the bus the whole time as we loved his stories, sense of humour, and of course, his accent. He told us funny things like Gordon Ramsay having a record of 312 swears in one episode, and that when Taylor Swift just visited Edinburgh, her fans were not properly dressed and 300 ended up in hospital with hypothermia. He showed us buildings with covered-in-with bricks windows (but painted to look like windows) because at some point they instituted a window tax and folks couldn’t afford it. He was also the first to explain to us the nickname of Edinburgh “auld reeky” for their smell from human waste and/or the smoke from burning garbage and waste.

The Scott Monument

After the bus tour, Marc was on the hunt for the perfect dinner. We tried a couple of places with great reviews but they were all booked up. We ended up at a nice little place on the Royal Mile which met Marc’s high expectations haha it was called Lucken Booths.

I will say that food prices in Scotland are pretty expensive.

Edinburgh day 1

Well Hello there!

We’ve been in Edinburgh since September 24 and we have all loved it! Scotland is an easy place to travel to in the sense that Scottish people are so nice and helpful, the tap water is safe to drink, and the food has many similarities to ours. The plants we see growing also have a lot of similarities to the plants that we see at home, and because Edinburgh is a main hub of a city we see many similar companies with store fronts that are familiar. However, Edinburgh is very unique and beautiful and much different from Regina, Saskatchewan as well.

Unlike Regina, everywhere one looks in the city of Edinburgh is a gorgeous stone building that is very old. We saw buildings from as long ago as 1100 on the castle grounds. Much of the Old Town Edinburgh was built in the 16th and 17th century in a medieval style. (I read somewhere that by the year 1400 there were only 350 homes there). The old town has steep and narrow cobblestone streets, and really neat little closes such as Advocate’s close which is a narrow staircase connecting higher and lower streets. The streets zig zag and cross cross and curve around and are very lovely for waking around in.

We stayed in a hotel across from Edinburgh Castle just beside the Princes Street gardens. The gardens today are very lush and green with walking paths throughout at the base of the castle. But in the 17th century used to be a stinky putrid human made lake called Nor Loch filled with human and animal waste. Gross. It also was the site of the Witch Trials in Edinburgh. Between the 16th-18th century around 3000+ people were trialled for being witches and if found guilty were torchered and burned.

On this trip we learned much about the history of Scotland and their history of being colonizers as well. Much of it is dark.

My brother and his wife joined us in Scotland and so we ended up doing fun tourist things together.

Day 1 - we wandered the streets with the aim of getting to Victoria St. which has been said inspired Diagon Alley in Harry Potter. It did not disappoint and the kids got a wand and have been playing with them ever since. We grabbed some fish and chips as one does in Scotland and then we went to Tom Riddle’s (Voldemort’s) grave in a famous graveyard Greyfriar’s Courtyard.

After we had a short nap we head out for a walk down Rose St. to find some supper. It is a really hip street that looked great for night life. We found an awesome Italian restaurant called Veeno that had been making wine for 125 years and had their own olive oils as well. They had a great kids menu. Our server was wonderful and gave us many tips and funny stories about Scotland.