Edinburgh – Day 10

Today we have decided to go and have a look at Edinburgh Castle. It is only about 400m away at the top of the street we are staying on, the Royal Mile. So we get moving around 9:30 at make our way up the road. The castle is enormous and it sits on top of a high point of Edinburgh so has incredible views all around. The castle proved very interesting and we spent a couple of hours wandering around within the walls. After we had seen enough we decided it was time for lunch. The weather was now starting to fine up as it had been quite overcast during the morning so we headed back to the cafe in the park we went to yesterday in the New Town. After lunch we continued wandering around Edinburgh before heading back to the apartment. One of the advantages of our apartment’s location is that it is as central as you can get in Edinburgh. So central that just outside our window and just outside the entrance is The Mercat Cross. This is where everyone in the city would come to here very important announcements and also to watch people get punished, beheaded etc. This is also the spot where a lot of tours start from, ghost tours and underground tours. We have decided to do the “Historic Vaults” tour which will take us underground. One of the disadvantages of being this central though is the noise. There seems to be a lot of these ghost type tours starting or finishing here very late and there is a lot of yelling and screaming all drummed up by tour guides. There is also noise right throughout the night. Last night there were people walking down the Royal Mile screaming and carrying on and I reckon it had to be 3am. Anyway, we pay our £25 and wait for the tour to start at 4pm. At 4:01 it starts to rain. Great. We are standing out in the rain for 10 minutes while the tour guide talks and Tyler whispers to me “Dad, doesn’t she know it’s raining?’ Haha, “Obviously not mate”. We eventually make our way underground and we are all pretty wet by now. It was a pretty good tour but I wouldn’t rave about it but the kids really enjoyed it. After the tour we get ready for dinner and being the adventurers we are we head back to the Italian place we went to yesterday. One of the difficulties when holidaying for an extended period of time with two kids is that you need to keep everyone happy when it comes to food. Sometimes it’s easier when you find somewhere good to just keep going back.

Pano view of Edinburgh from the Castle

Mia's mask at Dinner

Tyler's mask at dinner
The kids were given masks to colour in.
I made a bet with them that they had to wear them out of the restaurant and all the way home for the reward, a Mars Bar.
They did it!

Tyler watching the Ghost Tour which started below