After breakfast Saturday morning, we walked to Edinburgh Castle. The castle is up on top of the hill with nice views of the city.
Inside the castle walls was a mini-city. We toured around visiting the crown Jewels, the goal and jail cells, St. Margaret's church and the many cannons.
We also watched a demonstration of highland wear and afterwards was able to touch a typical sword. The person wielding this must be very big and strong.
For lunch I booked us at a very fancy restaurant, The Witchery. After looking at the menu J & I decicded it was just not going to work for our family. We paid for our drinks and left. We decided a better option would be a take-away place called Oink. And it was. The line was out the door when we arrived. Oink serves only pulled pork sandwiches, in 3 sizes, and with 3 different toppings (haggis, applesauce or bbq). It was a hit. So much so that we ended up eating there every single day.
Oink was located on the charming Victoria Street, with colorful storefronts and iron signs. It definitely had hints of Diagon Alley (apparently J.K. was inspired by this street). At the end was a joke shop which took J&I back to our childhoods and visits to Spencer gifts in our local malls.
After ice cream, we ventured to the shopping area of Edinburgh known as Princes' Street. I hadn't realized there was a pool at our hotel and the minute the kids saw it they were begging to swim. So we made a shopping detour to H&M to get them suited up.
Scotland is well known for their knits and tweeds. Along the Royal Mile was store after store selling knit scarves, blankets, kilts, hats etc. We visited the Tartan Weaving Mill which had five floors to explore. It was definitely a sensory overload with the number of scarves and blankets on display, but I liked the character of the place with working looms in a few areas.
C had a school research project over the break to pick a location and write about. J & I convinced C that Edinburgh would be the perfect research topic since she could see things first hand. We bought her a little notebook and she was very diligent make notes and drawing pictures.
Edinburgh is a very beautiful city with cobblestone streets and lots of old buildings that just ooze with character. The fact that the city is hilly only added to the charm, with secret alleyways and multi-level construction. Along the "Royal Mile" (one end is Castle, the other the Palace) there were lots of small alleyways, each a different "close", typically leading to steps and walkways.
Dinner was at Howie's, a traditional Scottish restaurant. Ordering the haggis seemed like a no brainer and to my surprise it was quite good.
No comments:
Post a Comment