Edinburgh Travel Diary | Days 1 and 2

After unexpectedly having some extra time on my hands, which you can read about here. I decided to treat myself and go on holiday, this time however I would be going solo. I was a little nervous at first as I’ve never been on holiday by myself before, but also excited for a new adventure.

I chose to go to Edinburgh as I went there last year and fell in love with the city. I knew I’d feel comfortable there on my own and was somewhere I felt confident to be on my own for a few days.

I got the train from Bristol up to Edinburgh, with only one change over at Birmingham, it was an easy journey. When I arrived in the city, it was bustling and after a long journey I went to Princes Street Gardens to stretch my legs. The first afternoon there seemed to fly by, I checked into my hotel and unpacked my things. After I went for a wander around, I grabbed some dinner at TGI Friday’s. Whilst the food was good, I was sat with a couple on a date one side of me and on the other a big group of lads. I felt very aware of how alone I was.

After dinner it was raining fat droplets so rather than go for a wander as I had wanted, I went to my hotel. I was tired after my long journey and so had an early night ready for the adventures ahead.

The next day was Sunday and I decided to go to Dean Village, it was a 20 minute walk from the city centre. I had come across Dean Village after I went last year, and added it on my list of things to do when next in Edinburgh. Luckily for me the weather had brightened up and so I made the short walk.

Dean Village is such a picturesque village! The architecture is beautiful on the houses, and whilst there isn’t a lot to do there it made a nice walk. As Dean Village was close to the Royal Botanical Gardens I decided to make the further 25 minute walk, as I had planned to go to the gardens the next day. But it made more sense to do the gardens whilst I was half way there rather than make the same journey twice.

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  Dean Village

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  Dean Village

To get to the Botanical Gardens I walked along the Water of Leith, which was a pretty walk along the river. The Royal Botanical Gardens are free to visit and are a beautiful place for a walk. Before I wandered around the gardens I decided to have some cake as it was nearing lunch time and the perfect snack before a walk. I chose the cinnamon carrot cake, which was delicious!

Whilst I didn’t walk around the whole of the gardens as I had already walked quite a lot, I wandered around without any sense of where to go. I ended up at some of the free exhibitions such as Microsculpture: The Insect Portrait of Levon Bliss and Weird Plants. Both exhibitions are on until September and are really interesting to look at. The Microsculpture are insects from Oxford Natural History Museum that have been taken so close up you can see all the texture on the insects. The Weird Plants exhibition is a display of some bizarre plants, my personal favourites were the Flying Duck Orchid and Monkey Faced Orchid.

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  Royal Botanical Gardens

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  Royal Botanical Gardens

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  Royal Botanical Gardens

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  One of the insects from the Microsculpture exhibition

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  Walking back from the botanical gardens

After wandering around for a few hours I made my way back to Dean Village, stopping for some lunch at a cafe called Bliss where I had bagels. I wandered some more around Dean Village, I came across their churchyard. Which was huge and had the most insane headstones. It was so interesting to walk through, the headstones were so intricate and nothing like I have seen before. If you’re into that kind of thing I recommend going, I could of spent hours wandering through looking at the headstones.

I walked back to the city centre and got changed, as it had gotten hotter as the afternoon went on, and headed out to a cafe where I met Sabrina from Arctic Sabrina. We met at Love Crumbs, which is a little cafe in Grassmarket, and it was so surreal to meet someone you’ve only ever seen online! But it was so lovely to finally meet her and we had some cake before wandering back through the Royal Mile. She invited me out to meet her at Biddy Mulligan’s later in the evening where there was an open mic night.

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For dinner, I had been really fancying fish and chips as I had walked past a few throughout the day and just really fancied some! So I wandered to Canongate and grabbed scampi and chips! After I relaxed at my hotel so I could shower and change ready to meet Sabrina again. I enjoyed my spontaneous evening out meeting new people!

That’s it for my first two days in the city! I felt a lot better Sunday than Saturday as felt less lonely and had gotten more into what I was doing. I had also done over 30k steps on Sunday alone! Needless to say I was knackered but felt so happy being in Edinburgh. I had felt a little down Saturday, which I think was mainly due to not sleeping a lot the night before and being wide awake since 4.30am. But Sunday more than made up for it. I felt in my own little bubble of happiness as I wandered around my favourite city.

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