Edinburgh – Day 11

Today we are going back to an old favourite, the open top bus tour. The open top bus tour starts from Waverley Bridge and consists of 5 different bus tours. We take the 10 minute walk to the bridge and buy our tickets and once on top and on our way it instantly gives you that “I’m on holiday feel”. Even though the open top bus tour is a little bit nerdy, it is a fantastic way to take in all the sites while sitting on your arse. The first bus we took was the Majestic Tour which took us down to the port area of Edinburgh and through Leith which was where golf was first played. This tour was one of those that had headphones you plugged in and i gave you some running commentary. The second bus was the Edinburgh Tour. This tour took us around the New Town, around Edinburgh Castle and past the Queens Palace and back through the Old Town. This tour had an old dude, Mike, who sat and commentated the whole way around. It is amazing what you learn on these tours and we don’t care how nerdy they are because we think they are the best value for money tour in every place we have visited and you get to go to places you wouldn’t normally know about and you get a real appreciation for the history of a place on these buses. Edinburgh is an amazing place with some amazing history. A lot of the history surrounds doom and gloom, wars with the poms, living in slum conditions and lots of royalty. The architecture is incredible and it’s just a fascinating place. It’s a shame we are leaving tomorrow because we have really enjoyed it here and feel we could have easily spent a few more days checking out some of the sights we didn’t get around to. Although, one of my learned friends did ask why I was staying in Edinburgh for 4 days, “you can do Edinburgh in a day mate” he said, not naming names (Steve Bowen). After that tour we ducked off for lunch. We thought we’d give the pubs another chance and saw one close so we approached the door. The first thing we saw was a sign “...children are only allowed in the restaurant area or outside and must leave by 3pm...”. What sort of draconian law was this? It is ridiculous because we can walk next door to the café where they sell wine, beer on tap and other alcoholic drinks exactly the same as the pub and stay until midnight! Yesterday during lunch Kris and I drank wine and beer while having lunch in a park. So a big thumbs down for Scottish pubs from me. So, I’m going to leave Edinburgh with not even having a drink in the pub, ridiculous! After lunch we took a tour through this old house, the only one of its type left in Edinburgh and it dated back to the 1500’s. It was another very interesting tour. We headed back to Waverley Bridge and jumped on the City Sightseeing bus and this bus pretty much just did the Old Town. That killed another hour or so before we made our way back to the apartment to get ready for our last dinner in Edinburgh which was fantastic. Tomorrow we are leaving Edinburgh and spending the next 2 days travelling to Inverness to the North before coming back down to Glasgow in our rented BMW 320. This is one part of the trip I have really been looking forward to.