6.32 am – We catch an early train and head for Peterborough – this means I’ve been up since quarter to five! However, it was rewarded with 1st Class tickets on LNER to Edinburgh https://www.lner.co.uk/ with breakfast on the way with plenty of tea and coffee to sustain us. We always buy our train tickets well in advance to get the best price. This enables us to go 1st Class and with using our railcards https://www.railcard.co.uk/ it costs little more than standard rail travel. It also helps that we aren’t restricted by date or times of day.
On arrival at Waverley Station (this is an amazing place and full of atmosphere – I love a big railway station and imagining where everyone is heading to or back from). We eventually find our way out and buy a 2 day bus pass which will allow us to hop on/ hop off for the 2 days we are here. https://edinburghtour.com/ “Catch the green bus” he said. We walk to the bus stop and a very friendly man there tells us we could have caught the red bus ( as it pulls away from the stop). So we wait for the green bus and are about to board when we are stopped by a not so friendly bus guy who tells us we weren’t in the queue, so we have to wait for the queue to get on before we do. We had not even seen the queue – do we need glasses? Wait a minute, we have glasses – do we need stronger ones??
We hopped off at The Grassmarket – for lunch obviously! https://edinburgh.org/discover/explore-areas/grassmarket/ There is plenty of choice and we decide on The Last Drop Inn ( which is reputedly the last place visited before prisoners were hung!). https://www.nicholsonspubs.co.uk/restaurants/scotlandandnorthernireland/thelastdropgrassmarketedinburgh We both have a chicken and bacon club sandwich with chips. It’s really good and we would have taken a photo but we’d eaten half of it before we thought about it. Anyway, it was very reasonably priced at £7.50 and really yummy.
We decided to walk off our lunch wandering through Victoria Terrace – it’s amazing – 10 storey buildings, shops and walkways piled one on top of the other.
We continue on to go and see The Camera Obscura and World of Illusions. https://www.camera-obscura.co.uk/ As we are buying tickets Tracy tells me it’s 98 steps to the top!! Help! We go straight up to the top. Breathless and after a few pauses on the stairs to gather strength, we arrive at the top of the building, the views are amazing.
The time comes for us to go in and see the Camera Obscura and for Adrienne, our guide, to tell us all about it – which she does very well- she’s witty and informative, making a very scientific concept very accessible. The Camera Obscura itself is as mind blowing now as it was when it was first seen – even in this day and age when we are very used to moving pictures, it is definitely worth a visit. Making our way back down, we visit the exhibits and illusions on each floor. All amazing and challenging.
Back on the bus to find our billets for the night at the Premier Hub, after booking in, which was very easy – put your name in the machine and out pops your room card – time for tea. We find The Piggs tapas just up the top of the road, a five minute walk, https://www.facebook.com/piggswinebar/ and share a cheeseboard tapas style but with Scottish cheeses, oatcakes, pickles and honey. It’s really tasty and yet again very reasonably priced at £22.00 for the two of us.
Next morning we seek out Baba Budan for breakfast. https://www.bababudan.co.uk/ There were three things we fancied for breakfast: pastries, cinnamon buns and doughnuts. All out on the counter, looking incredibly tempting. We opt for massive cinnamon buns and choose our tea from the tea menu. We eat in but there is a constant stream of takeaway customers too. It’s not hard to see why – it’s an inexpensive, simply wonderful breakfast, we cannot recommend it enough – if you’re in Edinburgh, go there – you won’t regret it.
Next up, we catch the bus out to see the Royal Yacht Britannia. https://www.royalyachtbritannia.co.uk/ We were so glad we made the journey out to see it. It’s such an interesting visit. You are guided round the ship with your own personal audio guide – meaning everyone goes at their own pace. I can understand why the Queen was so sad to see it decommissioned – though it was a palace afloat, it still feels like a home from home.
Back on the bus to the city centre and a short walk, uphill, to the Dovecot Studios. https://dovecotstudios.com/ They have a great cafe and we decide it’s time for lunch. It isn’t expensive but the food is really tasty. We had avocado and bacon sandwiches with two different salads – an absolute bargain at £6.50 each and very filling.
Then into Grayson Perry’s Julia Cope tapestries exhibition. Wow! I was blown away. I could have spent all day looking at them and still find things I hadn’t noticed before. We took the free tour with a guide around the exhibition and I was glad we did. She was able to give us a lot of background information. Just a shame there were no exhibition programmes left.
Back to Waverley Station and homeward bound. We like Edinburgh – there is plenty more to see when we make a return visit, even though we have crammed a lot into two days here. We’ve eaten plenty – in fact we’ve eaten really well and inexpensively by staying away from the big multiples and opting to find smaller independent places.
It’s a great city and we recommend you go there and spend some time there. We will definitely be returning.
Travels on a Senior Railcard 