This was part of our Scotland (2025) trip.
(Click here to see all our trips.)
Day 1: Royal Mile, Edinburgh Castle
We were in Inverness last night. This morning, after breakfast, we checked out and walked to the Inverness train station to catch the 7:55am LNER train to Edinburgh. The train ride was very comfortable. The view along the way was the usual Scotland rural view we have seen the past several days. I saw lots of sheep (many baby lamb!), domestic cows and two hares!
There was a bit of delay and when we arrived at the Edinburgh Waverley train station, it was already around noon. It was too early to check into our apartment, but we could store the luggage there. Edinburgh was very hilly, and we had to climb many stairs (with heavy luggage!) to reach the apartment on North Bridge Street.
This afternoon’s plan was to visit Edinburgh Castle and to walk the Royal Mile. I didn’t think we had to pre-book the tickets because we planned a mid-afternoon visit, and it wouldn’t be as busy as in the morning or in the late afternoon. Big mistake! The earliest tickets we could get was at 2:30pm. So, we went to a coffee shop to have some pastries and coffee, visited the St. Giles Cathedral, and did some window shopping before getting into the castle.
There were many tourists inside the castle (no surprise!). The Edinburgh city view from the castle was magnificent! We weren’t interested in war history, so we didn’t spend too much time in the various museums. We’ve visited all the numbered sites on the map. There was a Disneyland type of line to view the royal jewelry (no photos allowed).
The Royal Mile was like a giant outdoor shopping mall. Stores all had similar or identical merchandise but with different prices. It required keen eyes to spot unique souvenirs, and one should not make any purchases before comparing the prices.
We had a 7:00pm dinner reservation at Howie Waterloo. We had an excellent dinner there. The bread with olive oil was very tasty. I had salmon, and Rei ordered catch of the day. We both enjoyed the food very much.
Day 2: Arthur’s Seat, Calton Hill, Afternoon Tea, National Museum of Scotland
Rei and I were both avid hikers, so we had to climb Arthur’s Seat, the highest point in Edinburgh. We left the apartment early and planned to have breakfast on the way. However, we couldn’t find any cafes that were open. We walked past St. Andrew’s House, an old cemetery, Holyrood Palace and the Parliament to reach a trailhead.
It was still early, and we didn’t see too many hikers there at the trailhead. It was not a difficult ascend. However, hikers here were not as fit as those walking the West Highland Way, and we saw many stopping on their way up. The view from the top was gorgeous! There were a lot of yellow gorse blooms along the trail. When we walked down, there were a lot more hikers coming up. Today was Saturday, so many of those were probably weekend hikers. After we descended, there was an event going on with many runners. This was a very busy day.
Afterwards, we visited Calton Hill to see Dugald Stewart Monument and the National Monument of Scotland. The Nelson Monument was closed for renovation.
We booked the 12:45pm afternoon tea at The Dome. It’s the same sandwich, scone and cake type of afternoon tea. Rei liked this one better than the teahouse in Glasgow. The tea was really excellent, and they let us try different types of tea as well. We noticed that even though people dressed nicely, almost all of them were wearing athletic or hiking shoes, probably due to the hilly Edinburgh terrain. We found out that it’s possible to pack the cakes we couldn’t finish to-go, which was great.
Then we went to the National Museum of Scotland. It was a huge museum with many exhibitions and was free to enter. I liked the Grand Gallery area with many animal displays the most, while Rei was having fun trying out various musical instruments. Even though we didn’t spend a long time there, we both enjoyed the museum.
Greyfriars Cemetery was nearby. There was a famous Tom Riddle’s tomb that many Harry Potter fans flocked to. The tomb was situated in an inner courtyard and wasn’t obvious to find. When we were about to leave, we saw a large, guided tour visiting the place.
Afterwards, it was time to do some souvenir shopping. We mainly purchased shortbread cookies and Scottish tablets to bring back home as gifts to relatives and friends.
Since we were going home tomorrow morning, we didn’t want a big dinner. So, we just had fried butter chicken burgers at a shopping mall and then returned to the apartment to pack.
Amy 'n Rei 