Welcome to today’s post about our three days in Edinburgh Scotland! In this post, I will share with you our experience in this beautiful new and old town in Scotland. I will cover our favorite restaurants, cafés and city attractions in today’s post.
We flew from London to Edinburgh in a very early morning flight on April 22nd. Our first day in Edinburgh was filled with clear blue skies and sunshine. We were thinking that we brought the sunshine from Florida with us, since it was so hot in London too. However, the next 2 days, were a complete 180, it was cold, cloudy and temperatures dropped to the 40s.
Transportation to the City Center
Now getting from the airport to the city is simple. They have a tram that goes directly from the airport to the city center. You also have the option of buying a round trip ticket so you won’t have to worry about purchasing the ticket the day of travel. Just don’t lose the ticket, keep it in a safe place throughout your stay! I believe it was £9 for the round-trip ticket and was about a 30-minute from the airport. However, if you do not purchase the round-trip ticket, there are ticket kiosks at the tram pick-up points. Don’t forget, Scotland Is part of the UK, so they use the £ as their currency.
Lodging
We stayed at an apartment in Edinburgh just outside of the old town. Edinburgh is a very walkable city and our walk was about 20 minutes from the old town. We like apartments when we travel because they have kitchens, laundry and typically there is more room to relax. The apartment we stayed in was called Destiny Scotland-The Malt House Apartments. It was a very spacious 2-bedroom, 1-bath apartment that modern amenities and very comfortable space. It had a full kitchen and nice living room for relaxation after our long days of sightseeing. We booked it through hotels.com and I would definitely stay here again.
We now book the majority, if not all of our lodging on Hotels.com, because they offer free nights after so many booked stays. You can collect and redeem nights for your reservations and you get great deals via email. Often times, if you book through the app, you can get even better deals. Now, Hotels.com have both traditional hotels and private apartments to list. Just ensure you read the fine print because not all listings are created equal and some may charge more than others. But we have found some awesome apartments via Hotels.com. So it is definitely work checking out for your next trip.
Best Places for Edinburgh Eats:
Makar’s Potato Bar
My boyfriend found Makar’s Potato Bar on Instagram. When we find things on Instagram or online, we then go to Trip advisor or Google to read reviews. Well, we found Makar and it did not disappoint in the least. This is a family owned restaurant, which I always appreciate. The ambiance of the restaurant is very welcoming and cozy. Different layouts of tables and booths to accommodate many parties of different sizes. We wanted traditional Scottish Food so we could get the awesome flavor of the land. Makar’s offers a menu of hearty & traditional Scottish food, from lamb, chicken and sausuage. Each entrée is paired with a mashed potato mix of your choice from which tere are several to choose from. They also have a variety of scotch to pair with your meal. The food looked so delicious when we spyed on the tables around us, it was quite difficult to choose. So…..what we always tend to do, when decisions cannot be made we will all order something different and then share. It’s a win-win that way!
Once the food arrived, we shared our meals with each other and our tummies became quite happy! The meals were prepared in such a way, that you can tell they were home cooked and offered such a homey feeling. Comfort food to the MAX! it was awesome and DEFINITELY the best meal we had in Edinburgh. The service was also top notch! For an authentic Scottish meal, I highly recommend Makar’s Potato Bar.
Here is the website for the Makar’s: gourmet-mash-bar.com
You can also check out their Instagram here so you can follow them: @makarsmashbar
Rodi’s Turkish
Another fantastic place we found was Rodi’s Turiskh Restaurant. We love us some Turkish food and if you are looking for Turkish Food, you must check out this place, you just have too. We arrived around 4 pm and we were the only people in the restaurant, it was awesome. The service was fast and they were able to answer all of our questions. The food was so delicious that we all wanted more. The salad was incredibly fresh, the chicken and lamb had incredible flavor and overall was amazing Turkish Cuisine. The Turiskh Tea was the perfect ending to that meal. Also, not many places I have been to, have kunefe and they did. If you never had kunefe, then you have to try it. It is a delicious sweet and cheesy dessert. I wish I had space for it, but I didn’t. They do say that the UK has the Best Middle Eastern, Indian & Mediterranean Food. This meal reinforces that saying. Soooo, if you want amazing Turkish food, then you have to come here! I highly recommend Rodi’s Restaurant.
Here is the website for Rodi’s: https://www.rodi-bbq.co.uk/
You can also check out their Instagram here so you can follow them: @rodirestaurant
Don’t forget you also have all kinds of pubs where you can have a cider or scotch. There are so many to choose from, but they were all pretty similar, same offerings of beer, cider and scotch.
Best Café’s for Coffee & Dessert
The Elephant House
When we travel, we start our days with breakfast, then some walking, then we have a snack, then walk some more, then we have lunch, then walk some more, THEN we always go for coffee and dessert, then walk some more and we may have dinner or we may not. All depends on what our tummies feel like for the day. SO overall, we eat and walk a lot throughout our traveling days.
We were itching for our coffee and dessert time and to our dismay many places were closing around 6 pm. Many things close at that time in Edinburgh, it is quite sad. But none the less, we found The Elephant House. The Elephant House is a classic coffee house that has social seating, delicious coffee and delicious desserts. Many to choose from. Everything in there, from the tables, décor and chairs are elephant themed. And, we found out that a portion of Harry Potter was filmed in here. We had a very friendly Spanish server that was helpful and pleasant. The service was awesome a nice way to break from the day.
Here is the website where you can check them out: http://www.elephanthouse.biz
Café Andalucia
On our second day of coffee, we were actually going to head back to the Elephant House but we passed this and decided to give it a try. You may not be aware but I love everything about Spain, so finding this was a treat. In my opinion, Spain has the very best café con leches in the WORLD. This place was exactly the same. This is a typical Spanish restaurant and tapa bar, the ambiance was inviting and again the service was awesome. We were able to order our café con leche, café bombon and churros. If you don’t know what a café bombon is, well here it is. I only recommend this coffee if you like your coffee super sweet. For me, it is too sweet but others enjoy it! But what it is, is espresso mixed with sweetened condensed milk. It makes the coffee a little thicker and very sweet. For the dessert, Spanish churros are the best because you dip them in delicious melted chocolate. The chocolate used is not too sweet so you can enjoy many of them. If you are yet to try these, then you have to go to a Spanish restaurant and order them. That’s a must, get to it! Haha……
Here is the website where you can check them out: http://www.cafeandaluz.com
Best Attractions
As we were looking through the city travel guides provided from the apartment, we found a tour that included the three entrance fees to the following attractions: The Palace of the Holyroodhouse, Royal Britannia (which is the boat used from the Royal Family) and the Edinburgh Castle. This tour also included the use of the 3-city hop-on hop-off tour bus companies for 48-hours. It was a great deal for the £57. The entrance fees alone was more than that. You can purchase it at the kiosk just outside of the Waverly Train Station.
The Whisky Scotch Experience
Honestly, this was my probably my favorite “thing to do” in Edinburgh. I actually learned that the word “Scotch”, is whisky that comes from Scotland. I never knew that. We bought our tickets from Viator.com at the awesome price of $21. Now, the deal for this was that it took place at 10 am. Now, there is no harm in drinking at 10 am, right? The later in the day, the more expensive the whisky tour was. Honestly, every place we went too offers Scottich coffee, so doing the tour at 10 AM was totally fine.
You started off in-line, and they put you on a ride to give you the history of how Scotch is made. It is very animated with great sound, great effects and a good story. The effects are Universal Studio quality. Once you are done here, you get out of the cart and can see the wall of whisky, where you can see how whisky ages over time. It was interesting to see the changes it makes over time.
From here, you walk into a room and take a seat where they show you the different areas of Scotland and demonstrate why certain scotches taste the way they do! Each area presented, offered a different aroma and flavor native to their land. Again, the special effects were awesome and it was beautifully put together.
We then walked into the next room where we all sat down and in a circle. Above us, lights were shown onto the table in front of us to depict the different areas of scotch that were available for tasting. However, before we could partake in the deliciousness of the scotch, we were once again presented with an amazing effect presentation on how blended scotch is made. It was actually cool, I have the video below, check it out!
I personally, went with the scotch that had the essence of fruits in the flavor. There was a scotch that legit, had the aroma of a forest fire. It was so strong and so bold in flavor. But then we proceed to the next part of the tour, which was probably the BEST part of it. We were escorted into the room of all rooms. It was a collection of over 3000 bottles of Scotch, some that were from 1849, it was incredible to see and the layout was awesome and so eye capturing. Look at our pictures!
After this incredible site, you were able to sit down and relax with more scotch. Don’t forget to stop at the “Gift Shop” where you can see essentially every bottle of Whisky and Scotch EVER created. They even have soap that is whisky scented!
I highly recommend this tour! Remember, the earlier you go, the cheaper it is!
Happy Scotch Tasting!
Edinburgh Castle
The Edinburgh Castle is the landmark of Edinburgh. It sits on the highest point in Edinburgh and is the main attraction of the Old Town. You can pretty much see it from any point in Edinburgh. You enter the castle and through what looks like a large heavy gate and walk onto a campus of where the castle sits. It is a very beautiful area made with stones as the roads and the buildings. It was very windy that day being so high on the hill. So if you go when it’s chilly out, then please make sure you dress in warm clothes. You can walk into the many buildings on campus and the history of the castle is displayed. There is a room with all weapons used during the time the castle was in use. It was very game of thrones like. There was a museum that you could walk through to see the different uniforms used during the times of war. Probably my most favorite building was where the Scottish names derived from. They had books, books and more books where you can see the history of the Scottish names. You may be able to find the names of your ancestors and the names there were from ALL countries, not just Scotland. It was very cool to see that, I was just sad I didn’t have a Scottish last name. Maybe they will have something similar in Germany when we go.
While you are there on campus, be sure to check out the liquor store they have there. It is small and cozy but have a great selection.
The Palace of Holyroodhouse
You walk into the yard of the Holyroodhouse and enter what seems like a small castle. This is the residence for the old Queen of Scotland, or now the Queen of the United Kingdom, Queen Elizabeth. It dates back to the 16th century and is filled with great history. You can visit the palace using the audio tour where you literally learn all about the history of the Palace. Today, the palace is still used when the queen visits and royal events take place. It is also used for daily tours such as the purpose we used it for. Many things are still authentic and restored to maintain its integrity. The courtyard and grounds of the palace are stunning. We went in April so there was a lot of rain and everything was super green. The flowers were beautiful as well.
The Royal Britannia
The Royal Britannia is the official yacht of the Queen and Royal Family. It was built in 1953 and is now on display for all to see. Just as an FYI, the entrance to the yacht is on the 3rd floor of a shopping mall and there is only 1 tour bus company that goes there from the three that you can use for the 48-hour pass.
Once you arrive, you get to tour the boat from the top deck all the way down to the bottom deck, where the engine and crew spend their time. There are so many things to see and it is pretty impressive. You get to see all rooms, bedrooms, living spaces, dining spaces, social spaces that are available for use. You learn so much about the royal family and how they lived while on the ship. Did you know that the queen and the king, actually slept in separate quarters? And Prince Charles and Princess Diana were the only ones that had used a double bed, all other beds were single. The yacht still has the look and feel of the 1980s and pretty sure it will forever be stuck there, but that is okay. I do believe they will use the yacht only on special occasions or when there is a visitor of importance to the Royal Family. I believe the Obamas or Oprah were the last on the ship.
The Princes Street Gardens
This was actually our first stop when we arrived in Edinburgh. We randomly came upon it after we walked through a very peaceful church cemetery that actually had the castle overlooking it. It separates the Old Town and New Town of Edinburgh. It was one of the most beautiful parks to come across. There was a beautiful painted fountain, flowers surrounding the park and families with children running everywhere. There are several entrances from Princes Street to access the gardens. There are also some great photo ops with statues that are strategically placed throughout the park. This whole park sits below The Edinburgh Castle.
In conclusion, these places were ideal for our 3-days in Edinburgh and really offered the best experience. We did go to some other places, but it wasn’t the best experience and I prefer to showcase the places that we enjoyed and would recommend to others.
I hope you enjoyed this post and check out these places when you visit the beautiful new and old towns of Edinburgh. Don’t forget to follow the places listed on Social Media too!
Cheers! Happy Traveling!
