After settling into our apartment, conveniently located just off the Royal Mile, we wandered up this famous strip lined with tartan until we found an Italian restaurant where we could defrost. Edinburgh is much colder than London. Much colder. Still we wandered down Princes Street as well and covered off the centre of town. Belinda and I ate cheese & crackers for dinner and polished off some wine til the wee hours of the morn.
On Thursday Marc joined us, we hooked up with Laura, and we all took a bus ride to Rosslyn Chapel for the afternoon. Famous now for the Da Vinci Code but also as home of the Knights Templar and probably the Holy Grail (Indiana Jones was in the wrong country it seems). Very elaborate decoration. And probably the oldest building I’ve seen since I’ve been on this side of the world – it dates back to the 1200s and William the Conquerer. This was followed by dinner at First Coast – rated runner up budget restaurant in the eating out guide I picked up. Quite a good find (I say ‘find’ because we did walk some way to seek it out). And then a few drinks in the Grassmarket area behind the Royal Mile. Another late night after a game of Settlers which I won!
Rosslyn Chapel
On Friday we picked up a hire car and headed to St Andrews. As per usual, I suffered from motion sickness but dragged myself out of the back seat for a cup of tea in a cafe where the ladies still wear aprons and serve scones and toasted sandwiches. No one is entirely sure which town we were in…
The trusty eating & drinking guide was leading us to a restaurant that we’d booked nearby St Andrews. After several hours of driving into towns beginning with Auch… it turns out we were nowhere near the Auch… we should have been and so we ate a pie from a bakery in a shopping centre. By this hour it was quite rainy and getting dark so we quickly whizzed back to St Andrews and saw the church (or the remains of the church), the golf course (greens near cliffs would have been pretty if we could see them), and the village centre (very sweet with xmas lights strung up and cobbled streets). Dinner this night was at a tapas bar just around the corner from where we were staying and we also got to see fireworks for a few moments on the walk there as it was the first official night of Hogmanay. Sadly these were the only fireworks we were destined to enjoy. After our Spanish delights we joined The Ghost Hunters walk through the streets and vaults of Edinburgh.
On Saturday Belinda, Jeremy, Laura & I headed off for our second road trip. This proved far more successful than the first. We took a lovely drive through the countryside (tks to our driver, Jeremy), did a guided tour through Stirling Castle, climbed the stairs of the William Wallace Monument, lunched at The Inn in Kippen (thank you eating & drinking guide book), and then walked around part of Loch Lomond before heading home after a very full day.
Sunset at Loch Lomond
Me rugged up
Dinner this eve was at French restaurant, B’est, in the Old Town with all of our friends present (in body if not spirit with a few of them just getting off the plane from Aus that day).
On Sunday, the last day of 2006, I wandered around a very gusty Edinburgh Castle and saw most of the highlights. It’s a shame but the oldest chapel in the UK which is on the site, was closed due to a wedding! I hope the bride’s dress was soaked through because I was after waiting for them to finish their proceedings! They later closed the castle due to the weather conditions. Back at the apartment a 3 course meal was being cooked up for all our friends before we were to head out for the street party and garden concert.
After being satiated with our late lunch, we headed out regardless of weather and a now-cancelled Hogmanay and went to a bar in hostel which Laura’s friend Moose runs, and then to Amicus Apple in the centre of town. Many glasses of champagne later we brought in the new year and the early hours of the morning.
View of Princes Street, Edinburgh
Thus Monday, the first of Jan, I had a loooong sleep in, a healthy lunch (I should begin as I mean to proceed), and we packed up and travelled back to London.
I liked Edinburgh despite the cold and wet weather. The old town really is very charming. And I am sure it’s like Brisbane, in that if you know which parts of town to visit, you can eat, drink and be merry. And we did manage to do that. The Scottish countryside is very pleasant as well – reminiscent of Tasmania I thought.
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