Songdoc

Looks like I'll have four full days in Edinburgh in early March after working in Belfast -- so no jet lag .
Is there a "best" area to stay in to be close to attractions? Would that be "Old Town?"

We're big walkers and prefer to walk or take public transport if that's easy. Is that do-able?

Any "must-see" suggestions? Our interests include castles, museums, quaint, old buildings. We love nature and walks, but figure this won't be the right time of year for trekking in the countryside.

FYI, no interest in whiskey, gourmet dining, or golf.

Thanks!

janisj

(I didn't post on your other thread and was going to suggest Edinburgh -- good choice)

>>Is there a "best" area to stay in to be close to attractions? Would that be "Old Town?"<<

Anywhere in the general rectangle roughly between Queen St/George St/Princes St in the New Town and the National Museum of Scotland/Cowgate/Grassmarket/Royal Mile in the Old Town. Some prefer being down the hill around Princes Street/Waverly Station/George Street and some prefer being up the hill around the Royal Mile. But anyplace in that general area would be convenient to almost ALL the major sites.

>>We're big walkers and prefer to walk or take public transport if that's easy. Is that do-able?<<

Good, since those are basically the ONLY practical ways to get around Edinburgh.

>>Any "must-see" suggestions? Our interests include castles, museums, quaint, old buildings. We love nature and walks, but figure this won't be the right time of year for trekking in the countryside. <<

Edinburgh has ALL of than -- even the 'nature bit'. You don't have to go into the countryside to get . . . countryside Arthur's Seat is basically in central Edinburgh in Holyrood Park. So if the weather is decent and you want to ramble -- it is right there.

Edinburgh Castle is the must of musts. Then you have tons of other choices -- the Museum of Scotland, The National Gallery, GladstonesLand, Holyrood Palace/Abbey, The Whisky Centre, several other museums, the Camera Obscura, the Botanic Gardens, the Royal Yacht, a short train ride to Linlithgow or North Berwick/Tantallon, maybe a day trip w/ Rabbies https://www.rabbies.com/one_day_tour..._ed.asp?lng=en

Songdoc

Thanks so much for the suggestions! I starting to stop sniveling about not being able to get to Rome ;-). I think I really will like Edinburgh.

unclegus

Edinburgh is much like Rome ,built on 7 hills.As janisj, loads to do.
The bus service in the city is excellent and easy to get to the ventre if you happen to have a hotel a bit further out but thar areas already suggested are great. I would also suggest the Minto street,Mayfield road ,Craigmiller road area, one long street where there are numerous hotels and B&Bs, great bus services on that road too,Furthest point is only 2 miles from the centre.
http://www.royal-mile.com/
this is a good website for loads of info on what you can see and do.

sheila

I have a long WoRd doc. If you email me, I'll send it to you

Hooameye

"FYI, no interest in whiskey, gourmet dining, or golf"

Glad to hear it, as it would be whisky in Scotland.

Songdoc

Interesting!
FYI, I have no interest in gourmet dinning or golff, either. ;-) HAHA

Sheila: thanks so much. How can I email you?

sheila

Addy is in the profile

RM67

I know you aren't going to be there at festival time, but this TR might be useful anyway for stuff like cafes, bars, museums, Greyfriars etc:-

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...rgh-fringe.cfm

janisj

sheila: I don't see your e-mail address in your profile. Maybe it was before the re-format a few years ago. When editing a profile one can put their e-mail in the 'website' field.

socialworker

I think (hope) you will LOVE Edinburgh!! We went for the 1st time in '13 and I was so enthralled with how wonderful it is. We stayed at a quirky place in the New Town that was a great location for walkability to pubs, restaurants, but longish for the Royal Mile, altho quite doable for sturdy walkers. The prices include breakfast in a very snazzy place next door, so the juxtaposition of old townhouse next door to a modern pub was just really charming.

http://www.53frederickstreet.com

basingstoke2

Edinburgh is wonderful and you will not want for things to see and do. We stayed at an excellent B&B called 14 Hart - the name is it's address. It is in new town but an easy walk to Princess St and the Royal Mile. There are very good, but not expensive restaurants nearby and the hosts are kind and have a wealth of information both practical and historical.

If there is one, do not - repeat do not miss going to a Ceilidh. Following is an excerpt from my TR:

Ever been to a Ceilidh? We went to one in Edinburgh last month and it was more fun than should be legal. If you are in Scotland, be sure to find one and attend - it is an authentic Scottish experience and often they are held to raise money for a charity - this one was to raise money to help Edinburgh's homeless. We learned of it through the TI office.

Have a great time. I know you will.

Songdoc

All this info is GREAT!!! Thanks so much.
I'm actually getting quite excited about the destination.

RM67: thanks for the link!

socialworker: 53 Frederick Street looks great. But I think we're going to look for an apartment. DH doesn't like B&B's. On Hotwire there was a 4* apartment in Old Town listed for $49/night (plus fees) -- and a 5* apartment for $80/night.

ESW

If you get good weather then Arthur's Seat and Salisbury Crags make for a wonderful ramble and they are right in the centre of Edinburgh too.

janisj has given a comprehensive list of places to see. Do try and be at the castle for the firing of the one o'clock gun.

As well as Gladstone's Land on the Royal Mile, you may also enjoy the Georgian House in the New Town. There is also the ruined Craigmillar Castle with its links to Mary Queen of Scots, easily reached by bus from teh centre of Edinburgh.

A bit further out is Rosslyn Chapel, again doable by bus. This suddenly appeared on everyone's tick list after Dan Brown's "Da Vinci Code'. Even without the Holy Grial connection, the architecture is stunning.

socialworker

HI Songdoc--- just an FYI, this place is really not exactly a B&B, if that makes any difference to DH. It is more of a quirky small hotel. Now if DH's objection is to the typical B&B where they expect you to chat up the other guests, I am with him and that is SO not what this place is…..OTOH, if he likes hotel services and a staffed front desk and that is the part he objects to, then he would not like this place.

And b/c you eat brkfst at private tables in a restaurant/club/pub which is next door, the second B of the B&B is not like you are in a B&B at all!

No matter what you decide on, I hope you both have a great time!

Songdoc

Thanks socialworker. Chatting is only part of the issue. Although DH definitely does NOT chat until at least the second cup of coffee. ;-)

With dietary concerns we prefer a place with a kitchen where we can prepare some of our boring, healthy meals. Also, he sometimes gets insomnia, so likes a place with a separate room where he can watch TV or read if he can't sleep.

You've given me such great suggestions. I realized we'll actually have five full days (not four), but it sounds like we won't have any trouble filling them.

Re: hiking and walking ...
It's hard to predict the weather that time of year. We've been working in Northern Ireland the end of February/beginning of March at a music festival for the past ten years. Last year, it was VERY cold, and we hit snow that kept us from even going out one day. But we still did a couple of walks on other days. It also snowed 6 or 7 years ago -- and it was unbelievably beautiful.

But we've had years when it was bright and sunny and we hiked wearing only sweatshirts. We're pretty hardy and I'm guessing we'll do some of those walks.

But what's really crazy is that I'll be coming from Hawaii!!!

gailscout

The castle and St Giles' Cathedral are must-sees - The Thistle Chapel blew me away.

Bokhara2

Hi Songdoc!
Nice to see you. I'm betting you will both like Edinburgh so much, you'll be plotting a return trip before you leave.

Songdoc

HiBokhara!
I hope you're doing great. That's quite an endorsement for Edinburgh!
We're getting excited.

gailscout: Thanks for the suggestions! All if this info is going into a file.

sheila

Edinburgh is a mixture of a wonderful late mediaeval city with a planned Georgian New Town, and modern bits round the edges. A visit to the Castle is a must, and a hike up Arthur's seat (a hill in the centre of the town above Holyrood Palace) will give you magnificent views out over the whole of east central Scotland. The approx. 1/2 mile hike provides a commanding view of the city, castle, sea, and surrounding countryside.
Castle Hill is the most westerly end of the Royal Mile. Directly below the Castle, to the south, is the Old Town -- tightly wound streets, buildings piled on each other (often literally). On the west side of the Castle is Edinburgh's commercial area. To its north is Princes Street Gardens, directly below the Castle, with the New Town section of the city just beyond. The New Town is built on grid-plan streets with plenty of restaurants, and shopping. To the east of the Castle runs the Royal Mile -- the High Street (which becomes the Canongate) -which runs from the Castle down to the Palace of Holyrood House at the east end of the Mile.
The Castle includes all manner of interesting things: from the Scottish military history museum to the Great Hall to the Honours of Scotland to the Stone of Scone, a humungous cannon called Mons Meg – made in Mons, Belgium; nicknamed in Edinburgh. The Great Hall was the hall where the Scottish kings held court before the Union of the Crowns in 1603. The Honours are the Crown Jewels -the sword, sceptre and crown of Scotland- which were considered redundant in 1707 as part of the Treaty of Union, when the parliaments merged. Sir Walter Scott (author of Rob Roy, Ivanhoe, and others) led the movement to rescue the Crown Jewels and in 1818, he unearthed them from the chest in which they had lain within Edinburgh Castle since the signing of the Treaty
The Stone of Scone, also known as the Stone of Destiny, is literally the crowning place for the Scottish king, because that is where they sat when they were crowned. It is now in Edinburgh Castle after a short (750 year) stay in England, having originally been used at Scone in Perthshire, where 42 Scottish kings or queens ascended the throne.
The Castle has great views over Edinburgh, some nice museums, too many shops for good taste and plenty to wander around and enjoy.
The Royal Mile is split into two halves by the North Bridge: High Street above and Canongate below. North Bridge leads over some streets below the Royal Mile (on the lower parts of Castle Hill and its surrounds) and into the eastern edge of New Town. High Street contains about 70% of the shops, pubs, activities, etc. of the Royal Mile including the vast majority of souvenir shops, Scottish trade shops (BUY YOUR TARTAN HERE), whisky shops, etc. Canongate leads down to Holyrood Palace and the Scottish Parliament.
Mary Kings Close, near the top of the Mile, is a street which, in the middle ages, was on ground level but when the great plague came to visit Scotland (and Edinburgh in particular) it hit the place hard. The worst section of the city was right in the heart of the 'Old Town', where the present City Chambers are nowadays. This street was known as Mary King’s Close (after an advocate’s daughter, so the story goes) and the local authorities, the kind beings that they are, decided to seal both entrances of the street up with everyone still inside. This street was rediscovered many years later and now you can take a tour down there. WARNING - they tell you that because of the many people sealed alive down there that there are ghosts aplenty. Tours can be arranged from the Royal Mile.

Incidentally, there are a bunch of themed walks run from the Mile, pretty much to suit all tastes.
Various closes and wynds connect the Royal Mile to the city below. The closes tend to be narrow enough to touch the walls on both sides and are steep (often with stairs) and they are all over the place. Buildings on the Mile were erected over the alleyways so that you now have attached structures with a close tunneling under one part of one or two buildings. In the closes and wynds were built tenements– multistory stone apartment buildings.
Edinburgh was one of the first cities to build four and five-story (or more) tenements. It also walled itself off in the 1500s so that an area just one-mile long and about ¼ to 1/3 mile wide comprised all of Edinburgh.
Edinburghers, until the late 1600s had no indoor plumbing -- instead they'd toss their human waste from their homes every night at 10 pm, yelling "Gardey loo!" as a warning (from gardez l'eau -- beware the water).
It’s redolent with histories and stories.
For example, William Burke and William Hare turned a profiteering venture into a mass murder scheme. In the early 1800s, Edinburgh University scholars were delving into the mysteries of human biology by dissecting cadavers, but only executed criminals could be used, and each doctor could only have two bodies per year from the executed, although they had hundreds of students. The university researchers offered bounties for fresh bodies. Burke and Hare ran a ramshackle lodging house with their wives, and one lodger died. They took the body from its casket to Dr. Robert Knox, who paid them nearly £7/10/- – a huge sum – no questions asked. The two lads then hatched a new scheme: plying lodgers and whores with drink, killing them, then taking the bodies to Dr. Knox for money. The scheme fell apart when a prostitute’s body showed up on Dr. Knox’s table and many of his students recognized the nude body that they’d seen before. The authorities investigated, learned that Burke & Hare had been seen with her in a pub, arrested Burke and Hare and obtained a confession from Hare. Burke was executed and his body sent to a rival of Knox (who had claimed ignorance and got off scot-free), who removed the skeleton whole and displayed it at Edinburgh University (where it remains today). Burke’s skin was cured and used as leather. Hare was reportedly lynched and blinded by a mob.
You’ll see, on the Royal Mile outside St. Giles Cathedral a heart shape in the cobblestones of High Street. This is the Heart of Midlothian and symbolizes the old Tolbooth where criminals used to be publicly displayed against the building that had stood on that spot. The accused would be tacked against the building by their ears for three days before their “trial” and passersby would throw insults, or rubbish at them or spit on them. Today, the Heart is the only place in Edinburgh where it is legal to spit – it’s now “good luck.”
At the bottom of the Mile is the Palace of Holyroodhouse and the ruins of Holyrood Abbey. The Palace is still a crown property, and the Royal Family uses it when it so chooses, A palace has stood on the same spot since King David I of Scotland erected the first structure there in 1128. Noet the increasing ornate-ness of the columns in the inner courtyard from boring Doric on the ground floor, to semi-ornate Ionic (ram-horn shape at top) on the second floor where the various meeting and dining rooms are, to very ornate Corinthian on the top floor where the Royal apartments are. Inside the Palace, great rooms, art, furniture, etc., but more importantly, the gory stuff: including the spot where Mary Queen of Scots’ Italian secretary was found murdered by lackeys of her second husband, Lord Darnley – you can still see some of the blood stain in the wood.
The Abbey is a ruin where Scottish royalty had been buried until the late 1600s.
Across from the Palace is a large structure of meandering design and a conceptualistic lack of concept. It has random integration of stone, metal, glass and wood and extends for more than a block up into the Canongate away from the Palace. It includes contemplation alcoves built into the building that jut out over the street and tiki-hut sticks acting as wood finishes on its outside awnings.
The structure is the new Scottish Parliament building – an unmitigated disaster of poor financial planning, but spectacular architecture.
In the New Town, in Charlotte Square you’ll see the residence of the Scottish First Minister and the one-time home of Joseph Lister. Lister was a surgeon who used carbolic acid in a solution as an antiseptic in surgery and to clean surgical instruments – the pioneer of antiseptic use. Listerine is named after him.
The former Royal Yacht Britannia is berthed at Leith, Edinburgh's port, and can be visited by the public. Some of Edinburgh’s best restaurants are in Leith. The Museum of Scotland in the centre of the City is pretty good, for the architecture as well as the exhibits.
Edinburgh is also a great shopping city. The best places to shop include the West End, George Street, the area around Victoria Street and the Grassmarket, and Stockbridge.

Think of using the hop-on, hop-off bus for transport.

It’s a fabulous place for pubs, some of which have particular slants. The two best places in Edinburgh for folk music are 2 pubs (surprise!) One is the Tron and the other is Sandy Bell's. Sandy Bell's also used to produce a news-sheet "Sandy Bell's Broadsheet" and I think they still do, which lists all the folky stuff going on all over Scotland. One other, a bit more touristy, is the Ensign Ewart which is situated near the entrance to the Castle - can't miss it. Walk along the length of Rose Street (or just nip up for a look) whilst it’s busy in the late evening and just take in the atmosphere. Great pubs (not all in Rose Street) include the Café Royal, the Barony, Mathers, the Diggers (posh name the Athletic Arms), the Roseburn, Bert’s, and the Abbotsford