A Weekend In Edinburgh

This post is a little overdue but better late than never?!

So last month Charlie and I took a festive trip to Edinburgh, this was my first ever trip to Scotland (bad, I know!) and I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. I’d had Copenhagen in mind for a festive trip but life was a little full on for both of us so we settled on staying in the UK for ease. I booked train tickets with Virgin which I think cost around £80 each for return, isn’t it crazy that it’s cheaper to fly somewhere in Europe?

After a comfortable 4 hour journey we arrived at Edinburgh station which is bang in the middle of the city and only around a 10-15 minute walk to our hotel on George street. Once we dropped our bags off we headed out for a little exploring, with no solid plans we just mooched and eventually found ourselves at Paradise Palms/Lucky Pig – a veggie restaurant I had heard about through Sarah’s blog.

JUST TAKE A LOOK AT THOSE VEGAN NACHOS. I’d be lying if I said Edinburgh’s impressive vegan food scene wasn’t one of the reasons I booked our visit and it certainly didn’t disappoint. I’m going to post separately about all the places we stopped to fuel up on in another post as surprisingly my vegan posts are actually some of my most popular! I had the vegan hot dog and Charlie had the mac and cheese, we swiftly found ourselves in food comas of pure delight.

After a hectic year we were both after a trip that wasn’t as meticulously planned as my usual agendas. I eased off the crazy planning and instead we just went with the flow. Our long weekend mainly consisted of eating, drinking, walking and a little shopping too. Whilst our hotel was in the new town (all very Georgian style and modern) we actually spent a fair amount of our time in the old town where there’s much more of a traditional feel – bagpipes included. We headed up to the castle and of course stopped off for a few drinks along the way, there’s no shortage of pubs in Edinburgh!

I think December is the perfect month to visit Edinburgh, everywhere is SO festive and the Christmas market was super cute albeit absolutely packed! We wandered around the stalls, grabbed a few snacks and just took in the atmosphere. Charlie tried to convince me to ride the ferris wheel but I always feel like they’re unsafe and my carriage will just drop off and I’ll die. Slightly dramatic? Maaaaybe.

2 nights felt like the perfect amount of time to explore the city. Among the Christmas market, castle, shops and eating too much we also spent an afternoon acting like total kids in the museum which by the way is actually pretty cool. Camera Obscura is another attraction we took a little visit too, it’s kind of like a crazy fun house and a bit odd but all good fun.

Edinburgh 100% exceeded my expectations and we both had the best weekend, even better that we didn’t have the faff of any airports. I can’t believe it took me so long to visit but I’m so glad I did! The food and vibes were perfect and it’s definitely somewhere I’ll be visiting again if only just for another plate of those nachos.