EDINBURGH, UNITED KINGDOM

Dates: 01.12.2022-04.12.2022

RIX-EDI

01.12.2022: Neither of us is going to work today, but I still have quite a busy morning ahead of me. I need to spend a couple of hours working on my master’s thesis, and I also wanted to squeeze in a gym session. With all that done, around 12:30 PM we can start looking for a car-sharing vehicle to get to the airport. This time we went with Bolt Drive. €3.84 and we’re there.
The queues at security are very short, so in just 5 minutes we’re through and ready to go. We head off to find gate C14 and get a little confused when we reach passport control, because normally when travelling within Europe, there isn’t one. But then we realise that we’re actually leaving the European Union. All good.
We still have a bit of time, so we can sit down at a café.
While waiting to board the plane, the British girls standing in front of us confirmed what I had read about how to pronounce Edinburgh. The locals pronounce the city’s name as “Edinbruh”. I have a feeling communication might be quite interesting here, because from what I’ve heard and seen, Scots can be pretty difficult to understand when speaking in their local dialect.

EDINBUGH MARKET

01.12.2022: The flight was a bit quicker than expected. Instead of 3 hours, we arrived in just 2h35min. I managed to get about 40 minutes of sleep on the plane, and then had to entertain myself with some games on my phone. As usual with Ryanair, Madara and I aren’t sitting together, because apparently saving those few euros on seat selection is very important to us. The old man sitting in front of me immediately orders a beer and a pack of Pringles from the flight attendant without even thinking twice. Looks like this is his usual combo.
After landing, we quickly find transport straight to the city centre. £4.50 for a double-decker bus and 30 minutes later we’re in the city’s central park. We get off almost right next to the Christmas market, so naturally we head straight in.
The first thing that catches my attention – we’re in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, but the Christmas market is full of Belgian waffles, French crêpes, German beer and sausages, and Italian pizza. Where are the Scots and their local specialities? Well, nothing else to do but start the trip with a pint of German beer for £9. I’m also starting to get a bit hungry, so I grab a burger from one of the stalls. A pretty bad burger for £8.50. I have to drown it in ketchup to make it edible. I’m hungry, so it does the job, but there’s not much enjoyment in it.
Quite a lot of people around considering it’s Thursday, but the atmosphere is really nice.
We don’t feel like walking too much today, but still need to kill some time before heading to our accommodation. We take a short walk along the Royal Mile, but we’ll explore this area properly tomorrow in daylight.
We stop for a break at Byron Bar, where I get myself a Brooklyn Pilsner. When we were actually in New York, we only drank Brooklyn Lager. This bar has quite a few different beers from Brooklyn Brewery.
We take bus No. 30 to our accommodation at Vita’s place. We got really lucky with accommodation this time. Vita, the sister of my mum’s colleague, has been living in Edinburgh for quite a long time and kindly offered to host us for these 3 nights. Considering how expensive hotels in the city were, this was especially nice, and we’re more than happy to accept her hospitality.
We need to get off at Murrayburn Park, and after a 5-minute walk we’re there. Vita shows us to a little sauna garden house in the backyard. A really cosy little place. The Gaiziņš fireplace is already burning, heating both the room and the sauna, so we definitely won’t be freezing tonight.

EDINBURGH CASTLE

02.12.2022: Since everyday life has been quite busy lately, we don’t feel like rushing anywhere this morning and just want to get a good night’s sleep. We slowly enjoy some porridge for breakfast and have a coffee. A little after 10 AM we start getting ready to head into the city.
Before leaving, the owner of the house – Roksa the dog – comes to inspect us with a good sniff. Apparently, we’re acceptable, so she runs off to mind her own business. We have a little chat with Vita and then take the same No. 30 bus into the city centre. Along the way we spot a swan, but apparently they’re quite common around the canal here.
Once we get into the city, we start feeling hungry, since we only had a small breakfast at home. At The Coffee Mill Cafe we order a traditional Scottish breakfast – eggs, sausages, bacon, some kind of flatbread pancake, baked beans, toast and Scottish haggis. A seriously massive breakfast. In the end, it turned out to be practically our only meal of the day. We simply didn’t feel like eating anything else.
Outside there’s a bit of light drizzle, or more like falling mist, but the temperature is quite pleasant. Around +8°C.
When we arrive at the castle, we discover that, at least for now, tickets can’t be bought on-site. So we walk a little along the Royal Mile and discuss whether we even want to go inside. But I guess we have to. After a bit of hassle trying to buy tickets, we finally manage to get them for 2 × £18 while standing in a gateway on the Royal Mile, right next to a Scotsman playing bagpipes and hoping for some generosity from tourists.
The castle is huge. Basically, it’s a city within a city. Once you enter through the defensive walls into the courtyard area, it doesn’t really feel like you’re inside a castle at all. Small sloping cobblestone streets and paths run between the different buildings of the castle complex. Up to 1.5 million tourists visit the castle every year. Quite an impressive number. Another interesting fact – the castle was built on an ancient volcanic rock formation. The last eruption was around 340 million years ago. However they managed to figure that out.
The outer walls are heavily fortified with a large number of cannons. As it turns out, they were historically used quite intensively to defend the fortress. Throughout its history, the castle has faced 23 attempts by enemies to capture it. This makes Edinburgh Castle the most besieged castle in Europe. Nowadays, one of the cannons is fired once every day at exactly 1 PM. We actually forgot about it and missed the shot, but at least we heard it and saw the smoke. In the past, this daily shot was used to signal the correct time to sailors. Today, of course, it’s just entertainment for tourists.
In the castle’s central courtyard, there’s a small queue forming for some kind of exhibition. Let’s go see what they’re giving away! Turns out there’s an opportunity to see the Scottish Crown Jewels – the crown, sceptre and a few other treasures. These are the oldest surviving Crown Jewels in Great Britain. I didn’t go too deep into the historical details of who owned what, when and where, but it was interesting to see them. This was definitely the most secure room in the castle. Basically, one big walk-through safe.
The oldest building in the castle is a rather modest little chapel. Built around the year 1100. The interior is probably no more than 5–6 m².
In the castle prison, which once held around 1,000 sea pirates, every prisoner was apparently entitled to at least two beers a day. I guess that only happens in Scottish prisons?

CALTON HILL

02.12.2022: After visiting the castle, we feel like sitting down somewhere and taking a break. On the Royal Mile, I spot a bar we already know – Byron. As one of our relatives likes to say, Latvians always choose what they know. So we recharge with 2 Brooklyn Pilsners. After all, even the prisoners got at least two beers a day. Why should we be any different?
Next, we slowly make our way along Edinburgh’s main tourist street – the Royal Mile. The other palace – Palace of Holyroodhouse – is already closed, but no big deal. We take a peek through the gates and continue towards Calton Hill. We’re in no particular hurry to get up there, since we actually want to arrive after dark. For three days, a light installation similar to Riga’s Staro Rīga festival has been set up on the National Monument of Scotland.
It’s gradually getting dark, and we get a beautiful panoramic view of the city from the Dugald Stewart Monument.
They’re still setting up the light installation, but we manage to watch one full cycle. The visuals look good, but something is glitching a little. Hopefully they’ll fix it over the next few days.
Today’s official sightseeing programme is complete. Now it’s time to just wander wherever we feel like going. We want to experience a bit of everyday life in British pubs.
The bars are packed, which at first is obviously great, because it shows that the city is lively and active. But after a while, it starts getting a little annoying. We’ve already walked into what feels like the hundredth pub, and still can’t find anywhere to sit.
Eventually, we settle down at Dirty Dick’s on Rose Street. A really interesting pub. The interior is an absolute mishmash of everything. Quite narrow and dark rooms, but very cosy. We manage to get a small table for 2–3 people in the central area. One round of drinks (1 beer + 1 cider) costs £11.50.
Later, we realise that you don’t actually need a seat to enjoy a pub here. Some people just stand in the middle between the bar counter and the tables. They shout over to the bartender to pour them a beer, which then gets passed from person to person over everyone’s heads in a bit of teamwork, and the whole process just keeps going.

DEAN VILLAGE

03.12.2022: Vita works somewhere near our first destination of the day – Dean Village. She offered to give us a lift in the morning, but we wanted to sleep a little longer, so we politely declined this time. Public transport is quite convenient here, so after a slow breakfast, we hop on a double-decker bus and make our way to the city centre without much effort.
We wander through the small streets of Dean Village. It looks like a neighbourhood for Edinburgh’s wealthier residents. It really reminds me of the Užupis district in Vilnius. The Water of Leith river separates Dean Village from Edinburgh’s city centre. From The Dean Bridge, there’s a view over the rooftops of the buildings. Apparently, it’s a highly rated viewpoint on Google Maps, but somehow we didn’t quite see what was so special about it. Anyway, these little streets were definitely a nice place for a morning walk.
The area around the river on the opposite bank is quite jungle-like. Everything is surprisingly green, despite it being December.
After the walk, we’re getting hungry, so it’s time to find somewhere to refuel. The Ginger Cafe on Rose Street catches our attention and ticks all the boxes for breakfast. Madara goes for a mozzarella croissant. I order an English breakfast: 2 eggs, 2 sausages, 2 rashers of bacon, 2 slices of toast, some kind of pancake-like thing and a bowl of baked beans. Basically, enough food to keep me full for the entire day.

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF SCOTLAND

03.12.2022: The National Museum of Scotland wasn’t originally on our must-visit list, but the fact that admission is completely free for everyone convinced us to stop by – and I’m glad we did.
The museum is huge, spread across 3 floors. Even if you wanted to pay just a little attention to each exhibit, I doubt one day would be enough to see everything.
The museum is divided into different sections. Each section has its own theme, spread across all 3 floors. Pretty much everything is covered – nature, animals and taxidermy, transport engineering, traditional national costumes, and even a few dinosaur bones here and there.
It’s a very interactive museum, especially the sections dedicated to science and physics. There are plenty of little gadgets and hands-on experiments you can try yourself, helping you better understand the exhibits and how they work.
A really interesting museum. We literally sprinted through the whole place, and even that took us around 1.5 hours. But I’m glad we decided to come in. Actually, with all its interactive activities, I found this museum even more interesting than the American Museum of Natural History we recently visited in New York.
Right outside the museum, there’s an interesting statue dedicated to a dog named Bobby, who lived near the neighbouring churchyard. There’s quite an interesting story behind this little dog, which you can easily Google – I won’t rewrite it all here. The only thing is that, for some reason, everyone keeps rubbing his nose. We couldn’t find any information explaining why, though. The churchyard itself is quite interesting, with Edinburgh Castle and cathedral towers in the background. Apparently, some scenes from the Harry Potter films were also shot around here, but that’s not really my thing, so it doesn’t interest me that much.

EDINBURGH PUB CRAWL

03.12.2022: Today’s sightseeing programme is complete, so it’s time to hit the streets for some pub hopping on our last evening here. It’s not that easy in this city, though. Well, it’s still early, so hopefully we’ll manage to find somewhere to sit.
Our first stop is near Usher Hall, which has become my main reference point for navigating around the city over the past few days. Shakespeare’s pub, where I try an Innis & Gunn beer from Edinburgh. I think this is actually the first local beer I’ve had here. The second round goes to a rather tasteless Scottish beer – Tennent’s.
On our way to the next stop, we once again confirm what we were talking about yesterday – you don’t choose a pub based on which one you like, but based on which one actually has a free seat.
We enter a tiny little bar called The Shoogly Peg on the main street for pub tourists – Rose Street. We settle down for one beer to refuel before continuing our search. This was the 6th bar we’d walked into in a row, and the first one where we managed to find even a single free seat. It doesn’t really feel like an authentic Scottish pub, though, so we’re not staying for long.
Eventually, we end up at the same place as yesterday – Dirty Dick’s, or as we jokingly call it, the Dirty Willies. I guess it’s exactly what our relative Andrejs always says – Latvians go where they know the place. And it works. No complaints.
We meet a Scottish couple from Glasgow. We exchange contacts and sort of invite each other to visit someday. Whether that will actually happen, time will tell, but in any case, it was really interesting chatting with them throughout the evening. Understanding their Scottish accent was quite a challenge, but we managed just fine.
We also had a mission to buy a Batman Christmas tree decoration for a friend, which we’d spotted at the Christmas market on our first evening. Unfortunately, the mission failed because they wouldn’t let us into the market just 5 minutes before closing time. I guess he’ll have to settle for a Scottish whisky souvenir instead.

EDI-RIX

04.12.2022: We slowly enjoy our breakfast, or rather our usual morning porridge, and start getting ready to head to the airport.
In the morning, we also have a little chat with Mareks, the owner of the house. Considering how much a hotel would have potentially cost us for those few nights, we really got lucky with such a great accommodation arrangement. Our hosts were also very warm and welcoming, even though we were practically complete strangers. We’re really happy with how everything worked out.
We’ve already left the house and started walking towards the tram when, after about 3 minutes, Mareks comes running after us. We thought we’d forgotten something, but nope – turns out their neighbour Jānis is taking his sister to the airport. And he’ll give us a lift too. Looks like we’ve ended up in Edinburgh’s Latvian neighbourhood! 🙂 We’ve basically been getting everything handed to us on this trip. Nice to get lucky like this once in a while.
There’s a bit of chaos at airport security. As usual, Madara somehow manages to look suspicious, so they send her bag through the scanner twice. Eventually, they let her through, since they don’t manage to find anything forbidden in her bag after all.
By this time, we’re starting to get hungry, so we manage to squeeze in another massive Scottish breakfast.
At the airport, we buy some souvenir drinks – Edinburgh liqueur for those we’d promised to bring something back for. I actually wanted to get some Edinburgh gin, because it came in really interesting bottles, but they only sold it in one-litre bottles. I’ve only got a tiny backpack – so that’s not happening. Although, to be fair, I have no idea whether the gin itself would have been any good.

RIGA

04.12.2022: Because of how busy the last few months have been, we basically had no plan at all for this mini trip. We just went wherever we felt like going and did whatever came to mind. And everything worked out great! I’d never had anything to do with Scotland before, but it definitely left a good impression. I’d be more than happy to come back here. If everything works out, next time we’ll stay for longer and do a proper road trip, exploring the rocky coastline of Northern Scotland as well.
On the flight back to snowy Riga, I managed to sleep for 1.5 hours, so the journey went by really quickly.
On the way home, we still have some Christmas gift parcel locker tourism to take care of.
Trip expenses, considering we didn’t have to pay for accommodation:
Transport (flights, public transport): ~€65
Food and accommodation (we didn’t have to pay for accommodation this time): ~€275
Entertainment: ~€250
Total: ~€600
Cost per person per day: ~€75