A weekend in Edinburgh

Holiday Ratings
Recommended days	3
Budget	£
Difficulty	Easy

This was a long weekend break in Edinburgh that we fitted in between work and therefore had the car with us rather than flying. Edinburgh is another great city that can be explored in a day but everytime we visit there are new things to see and do.

Access is easy via the airport and there are efficient links to the centre by bus or tram which is actually a lot more sensible than driving as parking is pretty pricey!

We didn’t arrive at the hotel until late in the evening and I was pleasantly suprised that everyone was up and ready for brekkie at 8 really! We walked from the hotel to the Royal Mile (about 2 minutes) and made our way to the Castle.

Edinburgh Castle

This obviously dominates the city and really is an impressive setting. This visit the courtyard was being prepared for the Edinburgh Tattoo. There is a lot to see inside the castle which is lucky as it is always busy with long queues. Luckily our National Trust membership allowed us to skip the queue!

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

The girls had a lovely time because they knew that next stop was St Georges Street, where all the shops are ….. After about 65 hours stood waiting outside shops (apart from a brief foray in to the abomination known as Hollister) we then went into the park. The girls and I climbed the 287 steps of the Scott Monument for the views but Deb wisely waited at the bottom! Back to the hotel to freshen up before dinner.

• 

• 

• 

• 

Stirling Castle

Next day the weather was meant to be nice so we headed to Loch Lomond, arrived there in a rainstorm, black clouds and strong winds so the cruise was out! Drove to Stirling Castle instead, much to the kids disgust – they weren’t worried about not doing the cruise but they didn’t want to do another castle, they just wanted to go shopping!

Stirling was lovely, we will have to go back when we don’t have the kids as I’d like to climb the Wallace Monument and look around the town a bit more, it was even sunny (ish) too! The castle had some very pretty gardens and it was another dominating location. The land around is incredibly flat other than the spur the castle is built on.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Edinburgh tourist attractions

We arrived back to the hotel about 8PM after navigating through Edinburgh’s roadworks and ready for an early night. Day 3 was a sunny start so we walked to St Giles Cathedral via a few shops. The cathedral had lots of history inside but also sulky kids so we then left to go to the Edinburgh Dungeon.

This is a definitely a family friendly attraction – lots of build up, excited kids and then very scared kids, who didn’t want to be there! It was entertaining but just that, didn’t learn that much – the actors were obviously well practised though and it was an amusing hour.

We followed that with more shopping and let the kids wander on their own for an hour before meeting up again, walking back via some live music, a fire eater and a torrential rain shower. The kids stayed in the hotel tonight so we can go and eat in peace!! We had an excellent evening at Canon’s Gait – live music and great food.

Sunday we headed to Holyrood Park and went for a walk up Salisbury Crags. Natalya ran out of puff half way up so she sat and listened to her music while we carried on. Lovely views over the city and the weather attempted a bit of blue sky too!

After an ice cream we had lunch then headed to Tower Farm riding stables. We had a 2 hour ride through some spectacular countryside although I couldn’t use the camera while riding. At the end the girls and Deb did some trotting in the yard, I think they all really enjoyed it.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Having the kids with us for our weekend in Edinburgh meant having to choose different activities but I think it was a reasonable balance as we all felt cheated and that’s apparently the sign of a successful negotiation!

2012