A Weekend in Edinburgh

Oct 21

*Literally walked straight up the stairs to the hostel from the station!*

Upon returning from Scotland, the semester absolutely took off. In all that chaos, I never got to post about my trip! So, here’s my review of my whirlwind visit to Edinburgh.

It is insane how easy it is to get to another country from London. We had a full day of lectures on that Friday but we came to class with bags stuffed to the brim. After our last lecture, we walked 15 minutes down the road from campus to King’s Cross station, bought snacks and sandwiches from a cafe, and boarded the train. In about 4 hours, we arrived in Edinburgh. We all tried to be studious and work on the train, to varying degrees of success.

On arrival, we dropped our bags at the little hostel just off the Royal Mile, which is one of the main roads full of quaint little shops and pubs. It was pretty late but the city was lively on that Friday night. We ducked into a pub for a pint! Walking around, there were lots of absolutely full pubs with live music drifting out of their doors. We saw several fiddles and guitars being plucked and strummed in warmly lit bars. We went to a pub that was had a collection of antler chandeliers and old, wooden framed paintings. You could have told me I was in a new bar in Fredericksburg and I would have probably said, “Hm, seems right!” I wasn’t expecting that little overlap in aesthetics but it was a great little pub!

The next day, Saturday, was our big day to see the city. All 5 of us had been inundated with Tiktok recommendations of what to do in Edinburgh. One of the main ones we all kept seeing was a cafe called “The Milkman.” It looked much larger on the videos but it was an adorable little cafe with a variety of drinks and wonderful, buttery + flaky pastries. We were willing to wait the 15 minutes in line in the chilly morning air for our morning caffeine fix.

Once we had our caffeine, we set out to explore the city! We popped into a few shops, meandered about Old Town and the Princes Street Gardens. Everywhere we walked, we kept getting beautiful views of the castle. Plus, the leaves were starting to change and the fall colors really were stunning.

We had a classic pub lunch of steak + ale pies at a place named for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle! I had no idea he was born in Edinburgh.

Then, we visited the National Gallery!

The gallery was stunning, as you can see. Some really gorgeous pieces. My group fanned out and I ended up strolling the museum mostly alone and listening to Lucy Dacus’s album, Forever is a Feeling. It felt very fitting. The gallery wasn’t huge though so we got through it pretty quick and the day was not over yet!

The painting above, “The Quarrel of Oberon and Titania” by Sir Joseph Noel Paton, was my favorite piece in the gallery. It was painted in 1849. Sir Joseph Noel Paton was a Scottish artist that eventually was appointed as the Queen’s Limner of Scotland, a kind of miniature portrait painter, before eventually being knighted. Lewis Carroll, author of Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland, was apparently delighted by the painting and counted the 165 fairies depicted in the image. Carroll would even invite him to illustrate his book, “Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There” but Sir Joseph Noel Paton declined. Anyway, the little fairies throughout the painting are so incredibly expressive and charismatic. I really enjoyed just trying to find all the little details hidden in the corners and dark recesses. An incredible piece!

We next ventured down to Victoria Street! It’s a picturesque spot with brightly painted store fronts on a curved street. It’s designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site! Allegedly, this is was J.K Rowling’s inspiration for Diagon Alley in Harry Potter. We also learned on our ghost tour that night (we’ll circle back don’t worry) that J.K. Rowling did a lot of her writing in this area of the city. There is a pub and a hotel lobby nearby where she worked on the books. Plus, a graveyard where some headstones carry familiar names!

By this point though, we were losing steam. We got hot chocolate at a place called Knoops. They’re found across the UK, not just Scotland. But, an insane cafe. They only make hot chocolate which, to me, just means the little packets with hot water. But not at this place. There are dozens of different chocolates to choose from, each with a unique flavor profile and percentage of chocolate. Then, you customize the toppings. And it’s not just yes/no marshmallow. You can choose to add seasonings like sea salt, pink or black pepper, Szechuan pepper, nutmeg, turmeric, cardamom, star anise, and cinnamon. You can also add rosemary, lavender, mint, thyme, ginger, or orange, lemon, and lime zest. There’s also 6 different kinds of milk and a handmade marshmallow that is bigger than the cup itself. Like I said, kind of insane. But, despite the numerous options, it was pretty good. Feeling a bit overwhelmed by choices, I went simple with a milk chocolate base and a sprinkle of cinnamon.

Feeling revived by chocolate, we walked a little more around Victoria Street before heading to dinner at an Italian restaurant for some homemade pasta. We had walked past it a few times and I swear they were pumping out the scent of pasta and garlic onto the street like Disneyworld. All any of us could think about was eating there. It ended up being pretty good.

Then, we had our ghost tour! If you know me, you know that I am a big scaredy cat and do not mess with ghosts. I was outvoted for this activity. But, it ended up being really fun. The tour went through some allegedly haunted vaults underneath Old Town. We had to go down an alley behind a nightclub to find the entrance. It felt very “What We Do in the Shadows” in a way. I did love the mix of modernity in a city that looks as visibly historic as Edinburgh. It definitely has that old, haunted air about it where I could imagine an 100 year-old vampire hiding so perfectly in plain sight in the city. Maybe it was also because we were there just before Halloween. Either way!

We wandered through the vaults and they definitely know how to set the ambiance. There was hardly any lights in any of the vaults except for 1 or 2 gas lanterns on the wall and the lantern the guide held. They were cold, damp and echoed easily. The guide made an effort to turn off his lantern in several rooms so we can sit in the pitch black and silence and wait for the ghosts to make themselves known. Our guide showed us pictures of when he and his guest had developed mysterious scratches after visiting the vault. One of my friends later developed a strange bruise! Is it more likely from running into something with all the lights turned off than a ghost? Yes. But, it makes for a great story. I have literally no pictures of the vaults because I refused to take a picture and go back and see something weird in the shadows later.

After the vaults, our guide took us to the graveyard called the Greyfriars Kirkyard. There, we were told all about the legend of the Mackenzie Poltergeist that inhabits a mausoleum on the grounds. I’m writing this several months later so my memory is a little fuzzy on the history of the poltergeist. But, allegedly there are hundreds of encounters with this ghost at the mausoleum and surrounding area. I think the city council even locked the area off to the public unless with a guided tour. Walking the grounds at night was absolutely spooky. Some of friends were willing to go all the way up to the mausoleum but I waited with the guide instead!

Aside from the ghost, there was other interesting stories about the graveyard. First, like I mentioned, some familiar names from the Harry Potter franchise since Rowling would visit the graveyard. There were graves for members of the Potters and Black families. A McGonagall. A Thomas Riddell, who would become Tom Riddle in the books. And more, I think.

Then, perhaps the most touching story: Greyfriars Bobby! Bobby was a Skye terrier belonging to a night watchman named John Gray in the 1850s. Bobby kept his owner company on the long night shifts and they became inseparable. When Gray died of tuberculosis in 1858, he was buried in Greyfriars Kirkyard. Sweet and loyal Bobby refused to leave his owner, however. He stayed at Gray’s grave, regardless of the weather or the groundskeeper trying to shoo him away. Eventually, the groundskeeper made a shelter for Bobby beside John Gray’s grave and the loyal dog rose in fame in the city. In fact, when a local law required that all dog’s must be licensed in the city, the Lord Provost of Edinburgh decided to pay the registration fee and provided Bobby with a collar with the inscription of “Greyfriars Bobby from the Lord Provost 1867 Licensed”. Bobby guarded his owners grave for the next 14 years, day in and day out. When he passed away, he was buried beside John Gray with a headstone that reads; “…Let his loyalty and devotion be a lesson to us all.” Behind the graveyard, there is a pub called Greyfriars Bobby that features a bronze statue of this loyal dog out front, complete with a golden nose and head where passersby give him a friendly pat.

So, even though the ghost tour had its spooky parts, it was so fun to wander the city and hear all the lore of Edinburgh. By the end of the tour, it was late in the night. We decided to call it and headed back to the hostel and went to bed.

The next day started with coffee before we set our sights on Calton Hill. We walked up the hill and got to see the entire city from the top and its several monuments. One of which is the National Monument which is an unfinished replica of the Parthenon in Athens. It felt a little funny to be seeing another Parthenon after seeing the one in Athens a few months prior, especially in such vastly different climates. Athens had been sweltering and the sun was relentless. Athens was a city of warmth, both in sensation and color. Edinburgh was rainy, cold, and gray. However, both beautiful in different ways! The monument seems to have a complicated history and I definitely need to do more snooping. I’ll add a link to more info on it at the bottom if you’re curious.

From the top of Calton Hill, we could also see the extinct volcano, Arthur’s Seat. Interestingly, the cliff is part of a larger park and geological region that was the location for the foundation of modern geology. James Hutton, credited as the founder of modern geology, was born in Edinburgh in 1726 and proposed the concept of a geological cycle of destruction and renewal the occurs constantly in the world. It directly challenged all understanding of the Earth at that time, the most notable of which were that the Earth was only changed by large catastrophes and that it was only several thousand years old. Hutton’s proposal indicated that Earth and its geology were ancient and dynamic, which are foundational principles for modern geology. This discovery and work of Hutton’s took place primarily in the cliffs surrounding Edinburgh and the park that Arthur’s Seat resides in, Holyrood Park. Pretty neat!

Pretty gorgeous!

After that, we ventured back down and had some lunch at a place called Makar’s Mash Bar.

They specialize in mashed potatoes. Yes, it was as good as it sounds.

I also finally got to try a Scotch egg and I’m obsessed.

I peeled off from my friends after lunch. They wanted to do more shopping and I wanted to take a little photo stroll. I took my camera, put in my headphones, and wandered off around the city for about an hour. I took lots of pictures. I just sent my roll of Portra film from the trip off for development so I’ll eventually share all of those too.

I met back up with them in an area called Dean Village. Stunning area. It was not at all what I pictured Edinburgh as. Maybe Germany but not Scotland! The houses were all so quaint and a little river ran between them. We wandered down the little trail through the woods alongside the water and enjoyed the sea of changing leaves over head. My camera, of course, died when I got there. I managed to get a few pictures on the phone though!

After Dean Village, we stopped for a little early dinner at a pub. We had some cheese fries and a pint of beer before we went back to the station and boarded our train back to London. We arrived at King’s Cross about 11 pm and were back in our dorm by midnight and went straight to bed to be ready for our 9 am lecture the following morning.

It was, all in all, a super fun trip. There is still so much of Edinburgh and Scotland I want to see and 2 days is simply not enough. But it was a perfect little taster trip and I came home with a few little souvenirs. I bought a beautiful photo print of a local artist at a pop-up shop we passed. I also got a little pendant necklace with Scottish marble which is unique because it has a beautiful green veins! It also allegedly has magical properties of healing and protection. Anyway, a great trip and I already want to go back as soon as possible!