17 May 2009
This is the first post of our May 2009 trip to Edinburgh and Madrid. We started flying to Madrid on the 15th, arriving early 16th, and then taking another plane to Edinburgh the night of the 16th. Therefore the official first day in Edinburgh is the 17th.
After going to Mass in the morning, we left the house at around 11:30am. Parked the car near Holyrood Park, next to the Sailsbury Craig. This is a great place to start a day with great weather, because you can see the entire city from the top of the mountain. You can see Holyrood Palace, which is where the British Royal family stays in Edinburgh.
At 12:30 we started a big walk through the Royal Mile - the main road of Downtown Edinburgh. Good place with lots of tea houses, restaurants, souvenir shops. What caught our attention the most was the "closes" - small closed alleys along the Royal Mile with backyard gardens, tiny stores, or maybe just a dumpster in some occasions.
We wanted to try a good restaurant, with local food if possible. After at least one hot tea stop, we ended up trying a new restaurant called Oink. We had Wild Hog Sandwiches. These were excellent.
Then we headed for the famous "Elephant House" tea house. This is the supposedly birthplace of Harry Potter - J.K. Rowlings wrote the first chapters in this tea house.
Then we walked all the way up to the Castle, at the top of the mountain. We could not get in because it was too late, but we took some pictures from the main gate.
Then we headed for the National Gallery. I personally really enjoyed this museums: it has two or three pieces of the greatest artists in the World, making it completely manageable for one or two hours. In just one hour you can see pieces by Rembrandt, Van Gogh, El Greco, Velazques, Cesan, and many other great Dutch, Italian, and Spanish painters.
We closed the day going back to the car, and driving to the bay, where we had dinner at a nice restaurant called "The Fish". We all tried the halibut and had the traditonal Sticky Toffee dessert.
0 comments:
Post a Comment