socialworker

Just in the early stages of planning but I did not want to hijack or piggyback on anyone else's already established thread!

Thank you, caroline (for your input on Ack's thread)---this is both the name of the place and the address of the B&B in New Town that is half the price of Apex City Centre......
53 Frederick Street. Thanks for any input you have.

I gleaned good info from Surfergirl's thread and your advice there, as well. We will be in Edinburgh for 5 nights and price is not the only issue, but the website for 53 Frederick made it look quite charming. http://www.53frederickstreet.com/

I apologize for my ignorance of locations, as I said we have only barely begun to plan for this trip and I have not yet done my preparations. However, as it will be a large international meeting, that DH is going to, it is prudent to arrange accommodations early.

I will add on to this thread as my knowledge of Edinburgh is increased and our plans begin to gel.

janisj

53 Frederick Street is a great location. It is 3 short blocks to Princes Street and 1 block from George St which is also sort of a 'main drag'. Plus Rose St (halfway between George and Princes) which is a pedestrian precinct w/ pubs/restaurants.

George, Rose and Princes all run parallel and Frederick crosses them.

Surfergirl

You are going to have a great time, socialworker! I got some amazing advice from these boards when I planned my trip and janisj, as always, was a fountain of good information!

unclegus

It is a great place and a great location,the only thing to note is that breakfasts as far as I am aware are had in nearby Ricks resturant.It would be no biggie for me and the location makes it an excellent place to be based.

caroline_edinburgh

I don't know this place through first- or second-hand experience but as others say, it is a brilliant location. It is on one of the wider, busier main thoroughfares in the New Town, though - with cobbles - so may not be the quietest place if that's an issue. I was always used to living in busy places so it wouldn't have bothered me.

Re breakfast in Rick's bar - this is a trendy bar & not somewhere I'd use as a bar (too old & untrendy!) but eating breakfast there wouldn't bother me now that smoking is not allowed indoors.

I like most of the Apex hotels and the Grassmarket is an atmospheric location in the Old Town (mediaeval - as opposed to the New Town which is Georgian); *but* it is stag party central, there are a few hostels (of both types) there or nearby, and it's not so convenient for walking or getting the bus to most other places you're likely to want to see. Also bear in mind what I said on Ackislander's thread about the castle being on a big hill & not on very direct walking or bus routes - although the Apex will look a lot near on a map to the castle, there's not that much in it to walk when you bear in mind the climb (especially if you don't know the back ways).

Frederick Street is much more convenient for walking most places, a few bus routes stop right on it and many more on George St or Princes St (depending on how dug-up Princes St is at the time).

If you want somewhere a bit quieter in the New Town, Ingram's on Northumberland Street is run by interesting people I know a bit (he used to be an antiques dealer and they are both very involved in the Edinburgh arts scene), and Gerald's on Abrcromby Place always seems to get rave reviews.

Havana128

We have stayed at Ingram's. It's very nice and a great spot, but you have to like communal breakfasting around a large table (we're too antisocial for that kind of thing).

caroline_edinburgh

Isn't that usually the case in B&Bs, Havana? They were never really my thing but on the few occasions I stayed in one, that's how it worked.

socialworker

Thanks so much, caroline and Havana!

We have stayed at B&Bs only infrequently, however most of them actually had individual tables at breakfast for guests---even a very small one we stayed at in Cornwall (St. Ives), but that would be a consideration for us, as we also are not chatty at breakfast (well, I'm not, DH would probably do better with that.)

I guess I tend to think of a B&B just as a small hotel, so I may be inaccurate based on my limited experience with them.

Do either of you know if the Frederick St location is in the area where the street that Ack referred to as being torn up is? I still need to check the map, but I am not always great with maps.... (DH is better at that too!)

socialworker

Thanks to janis and gus too! It is so nice to know that Frederick St is a nice location! (Sorry, sometime I get sidetracked looking at the most recent posts...)

There is a part of me that is not ready to make these plans yet....I am still on a high from the trip we just came back from, so that is also a source of my distractedness.....

Havana128

"isn't that usually the case in B&Bs, Havana? They were never really my thing but on the few occasions I stayed in one, that's how it worked"

Well, I have shared a breakfast table twice, once in Tennessee and once in Edinburgh and I have stayed in lot of B&Bs. I just tend to avoid the communal ones.

caroline_edinburgh

The main tram works, and where they have the biggest impact, is on Princes Street. I gather work is now progressing in St Andre Square and York Place too. There's no knowing exactly what the situation will be next May, except the works won't be finished. The works have been coming & going for several years now with no end in sight. They generally just more or less stop during Christmas/New Year & the August festivals. It doesn't affect walking round much. During the periods when all traffic on Princes Street is suspended, the buses usually go via George Street instead.

Frederick Street is off Princes Street - at right angles to it. Unless you want to visit the shops there (mainly standard chains), you don't actually need to walk along it, there are plenty of nicer alternatives parallel to it to the north. You'll just need to cross it at some point if walking to the Old Town or going to the National Gallery of Scotland/Royal Scottish Academy.

BigRuss

Note that all hills in Edinburgh head UP. Bring comfy shoes.

Ackislander

The work on Princes Street is definitely progressing. It is pretty well finished from Jenners toward Lothian Road; from Jenners to St Andrews Square (two sides) it is a mess and walking is difficult, though the track itself is in place and they are filling in around it. By May, I would suspect all that will be finished and the main mess will be on York Place and beyond. There is preliminary digging in the Picardy Place Roundabout. If you aren't driving, a lot of this is not a problem, though bus stops and routes seem to get moved around a lot, making people mildly late for this and that.

janisj

"<i>Note that all hills in Edinburgh head UP.</i>"

Funny about that . . . IME one always ends up walking more uphill than downhill. You'd think it would average out but never seems to work out that way

caroline_edinburgh

OP, re "I guess I tend to think of a B&B just as a small hotel". I'm sure they vary, especially the posher ones, but in Britain a B&B is someone's home - a bit too intimate for me. Our last B&B experience involved sitting at the family's kitchen table while the owner cooked our breakfast - I'm sure she was a very nice woman, but it just seemed weird to me. After that we stuck to hotels or pubs.

Ackislander, the Princes Street tracks have looked finished before - and then been dug up again. I forget when you were there but they do tidy it all up for the Christmas/NY & festival seasons. Last time I remember the tracks were supposedly finished, they then had to have the stuff sealing them from the main road surface all drilled out again & replaced, due to cracking - which took more months. And have they even started on the infrastructure for the overhead power lines yet? Sorry to be a doom merchant, but we were about the only people we knew who were in favour of the tram project to start with, but we were sadly let down. For us it would originally have delivered a reliable, fast, almost door-to-door service between home & work - but the tram works outlasted our jobs! And indeed, now, our residence in Edinburgh. And the route no longer goes as far as Leith, where we lived. And I first had my doubts when I saw a model tram and discovered that out of the 250-person capacity, only 70 would get to sit - fewer than on the existing buses! (Bitter, io ? )

BigRuss

In the UK, a B&B is a hotel with 1-5 guest rooms and the proprietor does live on premises. There is probably more inadvertent interaction with the proprietor than you'd be accustomed to at a US B&B.

A "guest house" is a hotel with 6-10 guest rooms, and again the proprietor usually lives on premises but there's a bit more of a hotel feel to it.

I'm trying to remember walking downhill at any point of my stay in Edinburgh and it's difficult . . . must be faeries that create all the inclines and remove the declines - akin to those moving staircases in the Harry Potter movies.

And as you see from the above, apparently the Scots have designed their tram system as well as they did their Parliament building. Good gosh. (And I like Scotland a LOT).

caroline_edinburgh

Ah, there we disagree BigRuss - we love the Parliament building!

latedaytraveler

Socialworker, sounds as if you are getting good advice regarding your lodgings.

One thing to consider: the weather. We were in Edinburgh several years ago in late May. I could not believe how chilly it was. One day we abruptly left the castle grounds because the winds were really howling.

This possibility should not hamper your stay – just be prepared with layers in case you have the same weather conditions.

Enjoy Edinburgh…

socialworker

Thanks again to everyone for all the wonderful advice!

We just got back from 2 weeks in Europe that included 2 full seasons of weather in the same 2 week period! "Summer" in Florence with late fall in London and Paris, so I will heed your sage advice, lateday---layers are the way to go.

For now, I have booked 53 Frederick. The photos look lovely (and TA reviews seem uniformly positive) and it does seem to be a larger "hybrid" type of B&B, with some hotel amenities, like a lobby. And since breakfast is in an adjacent bar/cafe, no fear of having to share a communal table and chat with others in the morning. I am so not a morning person!!

Also, as I said, the meeting that DH is going to is an international one and I can only imagine that the accommodations are going to start to be booked up before too long....