24 hours in Edinburgh

I just had a fab 24 hours in Scotland’s premiere city (sorry Glaswegians but you know it’s true!)  Arrived at 12:30pm and met by my uber-geek, funny and up for anything cheesy and touristy, friend Mr. R.  Mr. R is Canadian born and raised but it the only person I know who has moved more than I have!  He has lived in Italy, Sweden, Japan, London and now Edinburgh and still doesn’t know if he is staying there forever, mind you, forever is a long time and so I totally admire his adventurousness. 

Anyway, we dropped off the bags at his flat and first stopped by a cool bistro called The Circle I wasn’t hungry so just had some bread and oil but Mr.R persuaded me to have a bit of what I consider this bistros speciality…a chilli chocolate cake that was sooooooo tasty, it was all I could do to not stuff the whole thing in my mouth (lucky I had just one bite really…) then up came a bus trip from New Town to Old Town and we got off on the Royal Mile, I really don’t think I have seen so many men in Kilts in my life……honestly, there was a dash of doing it for the tourists I think!  So, we ran into a young (Kilted of course) tour guide called Big Jock (I kid you not) who was offering up free tours and we did put our names down but first Mr. R wanted me to go to one he said is fantastic called real mary kings close  and ran every 20 minutes, 

 so we went to book and the sodding place was fully booked for the whole day!!!!  Well it was a Saturday after all I suppose!  They suggested we try the ghost tour people across the road and as we were heading towards ghost tour people, I saw something that caught my eye….a tour called ‘Sin and the City’!!!  Well for petes sake, you did not expect me to turn that one down did you??  Cue frantic rushing by Mr. R trying to get us on both tours (I was busy talking to Sir on the phone relaying the mad scene) which was eventually sorted out   and after cancelling with Big Jock we retired to a place called  Chocolate soup which served something called Chocolate soup!!!! I was determined to save my appetite for dinner and had a coffee and a macaroon instead.

So up came the Sin and the City tour , which wasn't as salacious and I expected but interesting and good fun none the less, we learnt about the courts of session??  Some reprobates who founded something called 'The Wig club'  and some ‘Sporting ladies’  plus all about Edinburgh’s most famous brothel, which is unfortunately now a block of flats, but if those walls could talk eh?

We walked down towards the university section looking for cheap non touristy fare and ended up in an Indian restaurant, which claimed to be out of loads of food because they were busy, despite being mostly empty.  The service was very slow and by the time the mains arrived I had lost my damned appetite again….Doggie bag!

Bowen

Brand

Hot footed it back to Market Cross for the ghost tour led by a rather fun bloke called Ian, the daft ticket bloke referred to Ian as ‘flamboyant’ in such an emphatic way that I was expecting a cross between Laurence Llewellyn Bowen  and Russell Brand.

I must say, I was rather disappointed because besides being a friend of Dorothy there was nothing much flamboyant about him, I think that ticket guy has issues.

The ghost tour was fun, we went under south Bridge where we found out how the stinking rotten disease infested city's civic leaders physically and psychologically tortured  its citizens and to Greyfriars cemetery where I found out how the recently converted to Presbyterianism church leaders  killed some of the rest! The tour ended with some upbeat Harry Potter/JK Rowling factoids (for those of you not in the know, JK Rowling wrote HP in Edinburgh) and the tour dispersed.  Mr. R and I took a cab back to his place where we nightcapped with a lovely whisky called Ledaig

I loved it so much that Mr. R gave me his sample bottle so Sir can try it too.  Bless….

Sleep.  Had Mr. R’s cats climb over me in bed….not my favourite thing in the world.

Took allergy pills, eyes killing me.

In the morning I was able to finally eat my curry for breakfast…..lovely.  Mr. R walked me to Edinburgh Waverly where I only just made the train towards Aberdeen……

And there endeth my overnighter!  It was great fun and I will have to do it again at some point, there is so much to see, Edinburgh is a great city.