Edinburgh, Day 2, Part 1 (4/14/26)

Jay had just three things on his "must do" list for Edinburgh. 1) Sunrise at Calton Hill, 2) Sunset from Arthur's Seat, and 3) Afternoon Tea.

We thought it would be appropriate to do both the sunrise and sunset hikes on the same day, so our day started before sunrise. Calton Hill was just a few minutes' walk from our ApartHotel, and we set off bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I'd checked the route on Google Maps and there was a 'stairs' notice on the route. We didn't think anything about it, because there are so many stairs in Edinburgh that we thought it was kind of a silly notice.

Oh man, we should have paid attention.

"Jacob's Ladder" stairs

Just like Fleshmarket close reminded us of the stairs in Bellagio, these stairs reminded us of the stairs from Positano to Nocelle, Italy to get to Path of the Gods (Sentiero degli Dei). I don't know if it was doing it on fatigued legs, or the fact that we couldn't see the end of the stairs, or something else. Luckily, there are only 144 stairs in Jacob's Ladder, compared to the 1,500+ stairs to Path of the Gods. Either way, it was a small mental hurdle to get up these stupid stairs.

The good thing was that the trailhead (if you could call it that) was less than a block from the end of the stairs and before we knew it, we were at the top of Calton Hill with plenty of time before the sunrise.

They had this area cordoned off, but some brave strangers
ignored the fencing and gave us a great photo op.

Waiting in the brisk pre-dawn morning

Good morning, Sun.

We wandered around the hill for a bit before heading back down for a quick coffee for Jay and a chai for me at The Milkman, a tiny, Instagram-famous coffee shop in Edinburgh. Because it was so early, we had time to kill before the coffee shop opened, so we walked by the Scott Monument and revisited Victoria Street

Scott Monument

Pro tip: get up much earlier than the other tourists to get pictures
of amazing places without the crowds.

Seven a.m. finally rolled around and Jay was able to get his coffee from The Milkman. The chai was one of the best I've had, and we ended up visiting the next day as well.

We took our time exploring, and headed through Prince's Street garden to Dean Village. Since I'm not a fan of cities, finding these little pockets of gardens made me happy. 

It's hard to believe, when walking through the garden, that the road is just above us. We're no more than 100 feet from the roadway. The cherry trees might not have been blossoming in The Meadow, but they were in full bloom on Prince's Street. The air smelled so amazing.

We crossed Dean Bridge into Dean Village. 

Originally, we'd planned on walking in the gardens, but found out that they were private, so we decided to explore. We turned down a street and noticed that there were police and what looked like highway construction workers, but didn't think anything about it. We noticed a man up on a ladder next to a stone wall, putting what looked like small tree branches up all around the CCTV cameras and commented that their camouflage was much better than ours on our cell towers, then kept walking. Jay pointed out that there was a horse ahead and I was very excited to see it. I told him all about the horsebox, and how I want one for Skeeter. It would be so much easier than hooking up the truck and trailer. I had a passing thought of going up to see if I could pet the horse, but the area was so busy that we turned down the next street, which was lined with lorries.

It was only then that we realized we'd inadvertently crashed a movie or tv set. We spent a few minutes debating which it was and I decided it was the Harry Potter tv show based on the huge jars of candies I saw on the back of one of the lorries.

These look like they belong in Honeydukes Sweet Shop.

After we left the set, we found ourselves at the Dean Village Cemetery. Even though it was gorgeous, I was a bit disappointed that some of the grave plots were so new (late 1900s). As we moved further into the cemetery, we finally found some plots from the 1800s. I guess I just expected everything to be much older.

Eventually, we found the entrance to the Water of Leith path and enjoyed the scenery. Again, bits of nature tucked away in a city. It's every bit as gorgeous as all of the Instagram pictures.

By this time, we were getting hungry. We'd burned off our shared pastry and our stomachs were telling us to find food. Honestly, our feet were getting a little tired, too, so heading back into Edinburgh proper was more of a trudge. On the way back, we took a little detour into a church that had a community garden, and my hippie self was so happy with that.

When we got to the Grassmarket and found a place for breakfast, it was 9:30 a.m. and we'd walked almost six and a half miles. No wonder our feet were tired.

After breakfast, we had a bit before our reservations as The Chocolatarium. This was a "last-minute" add on to our itinerary after Jay took a virtual walk via Google Earth. What a great find this was! At home, there is a bean-to-bar chocolate store where we have done a mini tour, so when he found out we could do a tour at a bean-to-bar chocolate factory in Scotland, we couldn't wait to go. So, despite tired bodies and feet, we hauled ourselves to the tour.

Our ApartHotel was really rather well-placed
on the Royal Mile. The Chocolatarium was
maybe a block and a half from us.

The retail shop had lots of different chocolates for sale,
and they had a wide variety made in Scotland.

The tour started with the most amazing hot chocolate I'd ever put in my mouth. It was 51% dark chocolate and warm oat milk. It was silky and wonderful, and if the tour had ended with just the hot chocolate samples, I would have walked away a happy woman.

Alas, we sat in the "jungle" room with several other guests and learned about the history of chocolate, which was interesting, then we moved into the "kitchen" to make our own bars. It was explained how they took the beans and turned them into the lovely chocolate we got to make. Hanging on the walls by each work station were different molds to choose from, along with a variety of different mix-ins so we could personalize our chocolate bars.

While we waited for our chocolates to set up, we moved into the tasting room, where we got to try chocolates from around the world as our guide explained the history of chocolate, along with the differences between dark, milk, and white. She also explained why, to someone from the UK, Hershey's chocolate tastes like "sick" (vomit). It's because butyric acid is used as a milk stabilizer for Hershey's, but is not used in the UK. Super interesting.

If we would have had more time, I would have tried every
piece they had.

After learning about the history of chocolate, and sampling roughly a quarter of my body weight in it, our bars were set and ready for us.

Jay came up with much more creative names for his
chocolates than I did, but it didn't matter, because they
all tasted amazing over the next few days.

Holy cow, this post is getting almost as long as that day was. I'll finish up this day with a Part II. Day 3 will likely be a multi-part set of short(er) posts, then we get into the Highlands, in which we didn't pack as many adventures into each day. 

Edinburgh, Day 1 (4/13/26)

As usual, when Jay and I travel, we hit the ground running. There's always so much to see and not enough time to see everything. We started the day with wandering the grounds at Edinburgh Castle, and ended at the Department of Magic. 

Edinburgh Castle is a must-do when visiting Edinburgh. We purchased our tickets well in advance to make sure we could get in when they opened the gates, figuring the later in the day we went, the more people would be there.

Even going early, there was a bit of a line. Nothing crazy, though.

Our hotel was right on the Royal Mile, but closer to Holyrood Palace than the Castle, so we got a good warm up on our walk to the castle. We also opted out of the guided tours and wandered through it ourselves, which was another good choice. We started at the back of the castle and worked our way back toward the gates to avoid the crowds, and that worked out pretty well.

I'm always fascinated by castle dungeons
and prisons

Barracks for the POWs

Jay demonstrating how small the door is
in the military stockade.

It's perfectly GunDiva-sized

From my time as a volunteer with my local sheriff's department,
I can tell you this is a nicer cell than our modern ones.

The Great Hall was one of my favorite places in the castle. The Crown Jewels were off-site, so they weren't there to look at, but the armor and the 500 year-old woodwork on the ceiling was astounding.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail was a staple
in my 20s, so this suit of armor made me giggle.
I immediately thought of the Knights Who Say Ni,
but when I went back to verify, this wasn't their armor.
Still, I giggled.

The best views of Edinburgh Castle, like most things, are from a distance, so once we left and headed down to Grassmarket, we got a much better picture.

We found a cute little place to eat down in Grassmarket and then continued our exploration of the areas near the Royal Mile. We found an old bookshop to explore. 

This just screamed come in and browse.

It smelled exactly as you'd expect an old bookstore to.

We spent a good bit of time perusing the bookstore. It was small, but packed to the gills. There were books that I was tempted to pick up, but books are heavy to pack in luggage, so I opted not to buy anything.

I have been following a lot of Edinburgh travel pages and watching a lot of reels, and I knew that we were arriving just before the big cherry tree bloom in the Meadows, so we walked down that way to check them out. The Meadows is a park within the city and reminded me of Washington Park in Denver.

The trees were just starting to blossom.

As we headed out of the Meadows, I saw the coolest little shed and had to stop for a couple of pictures. This is an allotment shed made entirely out of old pianos.

Inside the shed is a full-sized piano, and they hold mini-concerts here. I thought it was just a cool shed until I looked it up. Now, I'm even more in love with it.

Our meandering took us up to Candlemaker's Row, where we found the statue of Greyfriars Bobby. Bobby is said to have spent 14 years guarding his former owner's grave in Greyfriars Kirkyard. You can't see it in this picture but his nose is shiny from all of the tourists who can't keep their damn hands to themselves. The Scots hate it when tourists touch his nose, and we heard several loudly complaining about people ruining the statue. Jay and I knew from our trip prep that he was not to be touched, but not everyone knows (or cares).

Mom thinks he looks like a gargoyle here,
she's not wrong, it was a lousy angle.

From Candlemaker's Row, we found Victoria Street, said to be the street that inspired Diagon Alley, and the Elephant Room, where Harry Potter was written.

Victoria Street is certainly colorful.

Love or hate Harry Potter, Edinburgh has leaned into it. I can only imagine the boost to the tourist economy throughout the country that has been ongoing for decades.

We went back to the hotel, which was very modern on the inside, and took a brief rest before heading back out again to find dinner and go to the Department of Magic. We had the absolute worst dining experience that night. I found a pub that was near the bar we were supposed to go to, and thought it would be a good place to eat. We walked in, looked around, and realized we could just seat ourselves. Great!

No one greeted us, the bartender noticed us, but never said a word. There was a QR code on the table with which we were to order and pay. We did, and only then were we acknowledged by the staff. It was the worst customer service we experienced the entire trip. We did not exist in their world until we placed our order and paid. And on top of that, the food was mediocre at best. We finished as quickly as we could, just to get out of the uncomfortable place and chose to walk around the block until time for our reservation at the bar.

 

We'd done plenty of exploring, but not in this area, so we headed down the block, intending to just take a couple of right turns and come back around. We got to the bottom of the hill, turned right, and then turned right at the next close (a close is basically an alley). The close started off just fine and then went straight the hell up. Everything in Scotland is up, but this was up-up. Once we started, we sure weren't going to turn around and try to find another way, because, well, everything is up. Might as well just grit our teeth and plod on up.

When we got to the top, and back out on the road, I took a look
to see what the close's name was. I didn't ever want to
do that again.

This looks nice and flat. It is not. If you follow
the walkway, you'll see it looks like it just
disappears. Because it does. At that point, it
drops abruptly downhill.

I was getting tired, but I was looking forward to our last planned experience of the day: making potions at the Department of Magic. Like I mentioned earlier, Scotland, Edinburg especially, has really leaned into Harry Potter and there are so many fun things to do centered around the Harry Potter universe.

We chose to just make potions, not do any escape rooms.

This was incredibly popular, and it was recommended to get reservations in advance, so I made our reservations a month or so before our trip. I'm glad I did, because we watched a family of five get turned away, and I felt bad.

There are both cocktail and mocktail versions of the drinks, and you choose which you want when you make your reservation. We chose one of each: Jay chose to do the mocktail potion and I chose the cocktail potion. The bar decor is very heavily Harry Potter-based, though there are some generic magic-type decorations as well. We each chose which potion we wanted to make and the instructions, along with all of the ingredients were delivered to the table.

Yes, I did follow the instruction to dance
around our table.

Jay and I took turns reading each other the instructions, and building our potions step-by-step. It was silly, and a lot of fun. Unfortunately, I don't have any stills of Jay's potion, because I took videos of each step.

We had fun making our potions, but I had even more fun listening to the big family seated behind me. The kids were over the moon with the experience; their sheer exuberance made my heart happy, and gave me enough energy to plod back to the hotel.

Throughout the day, we walked a total of 17,365 steps. Between all of the walking and the time change/jet lag, we slept very well that night.

The Murphy bed at our ApartHotel (apartment/hotel) was
exactly what we needed.