| travel |
Exploring Edinburgh 5 ESSENTIAL EXPERIENCES by TOM MAILEY
It was February, pre-pandemic, and we didn’t know what to expect in Edinburgh, Scotland. To be honest, we picked this city (pronounced ED-in-burrah) as our first place ever to visit abroad because, well, an acquaintance owns a flat there and offered it at an off-season price we couldn’t refuse. Thus, winter weather kept us ducking in and out of doorways all week. Snow, wind, cloudbursts…we were hit by all of it, often all within minutes. But there is no bad weather, just bad gear, right? So, we came prepared, and the upside was crowds were light, lines were nil, and the pubs all felt that much warmer when we stepped inside.
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| AUGUST 2021 |
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Edinburgh Castle
ur flat was in the “new town” part of Edinburgh (meaning it was built a mere two and half centuries ago, after the “old town” became impossibly overcrowded (more on that later). But we found both sections to be vibrant and incredibly walkable for anyone in reasonably good shape; we crushed our 10,000 Fitbit steps every day we were there. Part of our pre-planning was to sketch out a game plan, and we were glad we did, especially since we were only there a week. We arrived with a good basic idea of Edinburgh (I’m a dork for history so did a pretty deep dive into the city’s rich and storied past; my wife researched shopping, dining, and modern points
