Edinburgh Days 3 & 4

Hi guys, today's post is a follow up from one last week which you can read about here.

 Luke and I had a chilled out Wednesday morning in Edinburgh, wandering round some of the charity shops in Stockbridge. There was so much cool stuff and, if I had brought a bigger suitcase with me, I could have happily bought so much.

I did buy a Spanish grammar book that will hopefully help me out a bit next year though, and a few cool postcard prints that will be going up above my desk to brighten up my room in our new student house, so I was pretty happy. 

I was also very happy with the lunch that we enjoyed at a pub called Hectors, which is also in Stockbridge. But I won't go into detail about that, as you can expect to see a full restaurant review soon!

After lunch we headed to the Royal Mile to meet up with our friends again, for a tour of the underground vaults of Edinburgh. The tour was held by a company called Auld Reekie and it was so, so amazing.

We were taken down to the vaults by our guide and shown around, whilst also being given some information about the kind of people who would have lived there and the terrible conditions that they would have had to survive in.

The Vaults were originally built to be storage for business merchants but, as they were too damp, soon became the homes for hundreds of homeless people in Edinburgh. The vaults today have not changed much, to give as much of an authentic feel as possible, and it was really quite sad and scary to think that people had to live down there in the dark.

If you are in Edinburgh I would definitely recommend going on a tour of the underground vaults, it only takes 45 minutes and is an unforgettable experience. There is no-one dressed up or jumping out at you during the tour, which I thought made the experience all the more real.

After the tour we were hunting for something to do, standing around awkwardly on the Royal Mile, when a guy with a leaflet came over and asked if we wanted to watch a free, musical Edinburgh Fringe Festival show. Of course we said yes and so we headed off to watch an amazing 'Night at the Movies' cabaret by Title of Songs.

Title of Songs are a girl-boy duo who sang songs from so many movies both together and individually. They also had two special guests who performed too and they were all amazing; the 45 minute show went so quickly and I would definitely have gone to see them again if we had been staying for longer!

After the show we all headed back to the flat that Luke and I were staying in for a night of nachos, pizza and TV - it was great fun and the perfect chilled night in with friends.

The following day was pretty busy. We wanted to do something before we flew home in the late afternoon but didn't have a huge amount of time before our taxi arrived to pick us up and take us to the airport.

So, we decided to head to Princes Street and visit the National Gallery, which neither of us had ever been to before.

The main gallery is free to go into and look around, so we spent an hour or so wandering and looking at the paintings. I was so surprised at how much there is to see, so if you are an art fan I would definitely check it out!

After the gallery I went up Scott Monument, which is 287 steps high and offers truly incredible views of Edinburgh. Luke stayed with his feet firmly on the ground though, as he hates heights, and treated himself to a hot chocolate and some ice cream.

I have to admit, I was slightly nervous to be going up and down all those steps by myself, as there isn't a huge amount of space, but the views were more than worth it.

I got majorly camera-happy and had so many photos to show Luke when I got back down!

After a bit of relaxing back at the flat we headed to the airport and caught our flight home. Edinburgh was, as always, an amazing trip and I cannot wait to go back. I had the best time and I hope you enjoyed reading about my trip.

I know that this post was a long one, so thank you if you read this far!

Haze x