Old and New Town of Edinburgh, Scotland

Hey guys, welcome back! (:

This time I'd like to introduce you to a gorgeous and very special city in Scotland - its capital Edinburgh.

You'll be given some useful first-hand tips for planning a trip to Edinburgh and you'll see a lot of pictures of this beautiful city :)

(source: google pictures)

As you notice, Edinburgh is situated in the north-east of the UK.

The city's history is quite old, thus you can still see many old buildings and there are numerous castles in and around Edinburgh.
:)










It was the first time for us - my friends and me - to visit Edinburgh. My first impression was: this city is definitely unique! It has two faces - the "Old Town" and the "New Town".

In Old Town 

you'll find many high and predominantly narrow buildings with lovely ornaments on them and mostly in beige and brown tones. You'll quickly be attracted by its own charm and without the new cars in the streets you'd probably feel like being in another century.

Lovely, isn't it? :)

Here are a couple of different other impressions of Edinburgh's Old Town:

a typical tourist sightseeing bus

the main road in Old Town

Scotish taxi

FUDGE - sooo yummy! - definitely worse a try!!

you'll find lots of wee cafés, pubs and so-called "tea rooms"
in Edinburgh - they're lovely!

Scotish Parade with music

Street entertainment:

This is Scottish Parliament:

You are allowed to enter it and even look into the congress rooms. When there's a congress taking place, visitors are free to watch it.  



From the outside as well as from the inside Scottish Parliament looks very modern!

The Elephant House

Another important place not to miss - for all Harry Potter fans at least! - 

This is the café where writers such as J.K.Rowling sit down and get inspiration for their novels. The Harry Potter author came here writing on her early books of the saga in the back room from where you can overlook Edinburgh Castle.

Historical buildings as well, but also modern shops and restaurants mark 

New Town.

You only need to cross one bridge to reach it from the Old Town and you'll immediatly see how more crowded it is with its tourists, busy business people and shoppers.

the bridge that leads from Old Town into New Town and back

Don't get me wrong though, it's very nice to go shopping or to simply expore New Town. In this part of town you will find all new shops - in huge old houses and beside parks, green areas and stuff :) Very neat!! ;)

Shopping in Edinburgh!

If you're looking for fashion stores, I'd advise New Town. There you'll find a lot of modern shops like New Look, Hard Rock Café, H&M, The Body Shop, Topshop and many more.

Prices are relatively "normal", a bit more expensive compared to Germany. In most of the shops you can pay via card, however we had some problems with getting some money at the cash mashine. Not all of our cards worked, mine didn't and some of my friends' did. You should remember to get some cash before your trip to Scotland.

Traditional Scotish clothes:

Scotish hats

Scotish "kilt"
- you will wonder, but mostly men wear it

Other nice spots in and around Edinburgh you should see:

- the National Monument of Scotland

You won't wonder why the monument's nicknames are "Edinburgh's Disgrace", "the Pride and Poverty of Scotland". Well, the monument has never been finished, originally it was supposed to look similar to the Parthenon of Athens. They didn't even manage to finish two sides of the buildings though.

At least it is very suited for photos and tourists like it a lot :D We do, too:

On top of that there's a nice view from above as the monument is situated upon a hill:

As I told you Scotland is also known for its many castles 

- one of them is
Edinburgh Castle:

I have to admit that my friends and me found the tour with the audio guides was a bit too long and detailed (many facts about the architecture, its history, inhabitants etc). However you are able skip the parts you're not interested in :)

The view from Edinburgh Castle is really pretty!! You can see the whole city, the sea, Scotland's National Monument, Arthur's Seat and much more:

The Queen's Gallery

- or "The Holyrood House", hosts a programme of changing exhibitions from the Royal Collection. If you take the audio guided tour, as we did...

...you'll be told every detail about historical pictures and other fitments in the rooms.

Some can be interesting, but honestly, for us it was too much information.

However, for people interested in history, in stories about monarchy, in the kings' and queens' relics - this is a tour for you!

I have to admit, we needed to go on after we had walked through the buildings and the park surrounding them.

For those of you who want to enjoy a swim (especially in summer, of course), a walk with your dog or simply a nice sit down with your friends or family, 

Edinburgh's beach 

will be the right place.

For my friends and me it was very relaxing to simply sit down for a few hours on a bench near the ocean, to listen to the sounds the waves make, to watch some sea gulls and to enjoy the fresh air. 

Travelling by bus in Scotland

It was quite adventurous to get there though - I'll give you the hint to always have enough change with you! When we went on the bus, the driver did not accept our banknotes and we were lucky we had just enough money for our ticket left.

This is what Scottish money looks like by the way:

 Moreover I can give you the advice to always ask more than one person for the way, we needed to ask four people to finally get to the beach :D 

Luckily we found it in the end and all the effort was worse it - Edinburgh's beach is beautiful, despite the cloudy weather!

Night Tour

One night our group participated at a guided night tour through Edinburgh's Old Town. It was leaded by two young men, you'll find them under the name "Adam Lyal (Deceased)" on the internet. 

The tour was really good! At first we thought it would be a bit childish and boring, but afterwards we could onyl admit that it definitely had the right impact on us: We were scared! :D

So let me introduce you to our lovely tour guides:

The right one, "Adam", always leaded us and showed us some of the "creepy corners" in the streets. We were told old stories about people being murdered or about people hiding from their killers there. Always in the right moment, just when you'd forgotton him again, Adam's companion appeared and scared the hell out of us!

It was a reeeally good night tour, you should book it if you like being scared and seeing the most "beautiful" places at night in town... ;)

So guys, this was Edinburgh from various different perspectives. My friends and me share one opinion - it is doubtlessly a city to visit. You should maybe take the airplane (if prices are not too high) instead of the ship, many people got seasick on our journey.

I hope you enjoyed reading and I could give you some tips for your trip to Edinburgh! ;)
 If you haven't become a fan of this fascinating country yet - my next post will be about other must-not-miss places in Scotland!

See ya soon!

Love, Yoko