The Adventures of Doug and Bec: Scotland

After a 3 and a half hour bus ride we arrived in Edinburgh on a relatively nice afternoon. It was still overcast but was a bit warmer than Inverness. We walked the 2 miles from the central bus station to our hostel which was in the ‘West end’ area in a huge converted cathedral church! I hadn’t told Bec that this is where we were staying so it was a bit of a surprise when we rocked up out the front of a big old sandstone cathedral and found our room which was in the basement area… but due to the renovations was actually quite nice. The shared bathroom was also one of the best by far and was never busy! The hostel was called “The Belford Hostel” and had a massive common room and kitchen. I would recommend it to anyone despite the walk to town.

On the first afternoon we headed into one of the pubs nearby to get food, but unluckily for us this one did not serve dinner midweek (?!??? What’s with that?), so we had to walk another kilometre or so to another pub which was a little expensive, but after an afternoon of walking after a long bus ride it was by far the best option.

During the evening we also decided that after being in the cold of Ireland and Scotland we needed some warmth and booked flights from Glasgow on the 16^th to Barcelona in the south of Spain which according to my phone was experiencing 30 degree sunny days!

ON our first full day in Edinburgh we headed the 2 miles back into the centre of the city to meet up with a free walking tour organised by the Sandman group. We had heard about this due to the pamphlets in the hostel and it looked quite good. The way they work is it is free however you are welcome to tip the tour guides who are volunteers, if you decide the tour was worth it. There is no obligation to tip and we found they definitely were not pushy about it.

Our tour guide, Jonny, was a late 20’s English Literature grad from the Edinburgh University, and hence knew a lot about the history of the city. We spent three hours walking in and around the ‘Royal Mile’ and various other historically significant areas, such as where they hung a lot of the Covenant people and also the Covenant Jail. We visited one of the most used cemeteries in the city (estimated 500,000 people buried there) and heard the story about the watchmen who was buried there and his dog that slept at his grave every night after he died. Only the wealthy get grave stones in the cemetery and JK Rowling used a few names from the deceased in the harry potter series, such as Tom Riddle and McGonngill. We also were shown the castle, which is a school, that was the inspiration for Hogwarts. We visited the area of the old markets and heard the punishment for stealing which was having your ear nailed to a wall in the middle of the market for 24 hours and people would throw all their waste at you and you were not allowed to go back to your job until your ear healed, or alternatively you could rip your ear off the wall but you would have a scar forever and hence you could never work again! Some of the stories were amazing and the knowledge of our guide was excellent. He also told us about a strange old law in Edinburgh which is that you are hung if you ‘pretend to be an Egyptian’….

After the tour we headed to a pub to have lunch with some of the others in our group and the guide before heading back to the hostel via the “Jam House” where Bec’s cousin Ben used to work (unfortunately closed).

The next day was horrible. After such a beautiful sunny day before, we woke to rain and 10 degree (with a wind chill of 6 degree) and very gusty winds. We had until 3pm when we would catch a bus to Glasgow so we headed to the bus station to store our bags for the day after checking out. The locker storage at the bus station was excellent. We purchased a medium sized locker which fitted all of our stuff in it for 6 pound for 12 hours.

After storing our gear we headed in the rain to find somewhere to print out our flight tickets as stupidly enough Ryan Air requires you to bring along printed copies and you get charged 60 pound if you do not! This is like $100, which was the price of the flight anyway! After we finally found somewhere, we headed across town to the Edinburgh Museum and spent an hour or so looking around at items including the oldest chess set and the stuffed remains of Dolly the sheep! We would have liked to go inside Edinburgh Castle but we had little time left and it was a bit out of our backpackers price range, but it was still very impressive from the outside.

The bus ride to Glasgow was excellent. We were aboard a bus called the Panda Express (as it went via the zoo) and we had a four seat booth on the bus to ourselves with a table, drink holders, individual air vents and lights and also free Wi-Fi! Definitely the way to travel as it was only 9 pound for a 3 and a half hour bus ride!

We stayed the night in the Travelodge right near the Glasgow Prestwick airport and had an excellent dinner at the Italian restaurant next door before getting up early the next morning to take the 3 hour flight to Barcelona.

Statue near where we started the walking tour

This used to be where people had to pay taxes or go to jail. It is tradition to spit on the heart but apparently people get proposed to on it every year without knowing the history

Cant remember who but its lucky to rub his foot

One of the buildings along the royal mile

This is where Robert Louis Stevenson wrote some of his books

One of the churches on the royal mile. It was here a girl threw a stool at the priest for trying to make them worship the king and through him god, rather than praying straight to god