Maria had been talking about going to visit 'Auld Reekie', or Edinburgh as it's more commonly known, for the last few months and we had finally arranged to have an overnight stay in the capital city. The arrangements didn't go totally to plan though, we were meant to meet David's cousin, Lyal, in Edinburgh so he could take us into the Castle for free but he was struck down sick.

Ian, David's dad, drove us to Edinburgh and dropped us as close to our accommodation as possible. We had booked a night at the Edinburgh Central Guesthouse on Hill Street in the 'new' town. The new town is a bit of a misnomer, it's actually quite old for being new, older than New Zealand in fact. The new town is a maze of one way roads, narrow cobbled streets, blocked off pedestrian streets and a severe lack of parking. The guesthouse was only 20 metres up the street from where we were dropped and we were soon shown into our room. David had called earlier in the morning to arrange to drop our bags off and they said at the time they would make our room ready first. Very nice of them. We were given a big room on the top floor, which had a double and single bed as well as sofa and desk. It was an older building, but it had modern decor and the bathroom suite was even new. For £58 for the night, including breakfast, it was an absolute bargain for Edinburgh. It was nice to be in a big, spacious room after some of the broom cupboards we had been staying in, in America, but we were in Edinburgh to be tourists and not stay locked in our room.

We walked a couple of blocks from Hill Street to Princes Street, the main street running through the centre of the city. We crossed over the street, being careful to avoid the recently reintroduced trams. On the southern side of the street, you get views across the Princess Street Gardens and up towards the Castle perched on the old volcanic plug. Suddenly there was a big puff of smoke followed, a fraction of a second later, by an almighty boom that made Maria jump. It was 1 o'clock. The gun, which is actually more like a cannon, is fired every day except Sundays at 1pm.

We walked round the perimeter of the park and up the cobbled streets to the Castle. We joined the queue to pay our entry fee of £16 each, there weren't many people in the queue and we were soon walking through the archway into the castle itself.

The castle grounds are huge with a few museums housed in there as well so you could easily spend a whole day there. We decided just to walk around the highlights. The ramparts nearest the entrance gave great views of Arthur's Seat in the East and the city centre and all the way North to the Firth of Forth river.

We passed the "One O'Clock Gun", which is a lot bigger than you would imagine, to the National War Museum. We didn't stay too long in the museum, just a quick look around and watched video to get an understanding of Scottish military history.

The military prison is no longer in use so we could walk through the cells and read stories of the inmates who once occupied them. Next door was a 'Prisoners of War' exhibition showing the big rooms with hammocks, living quarters and the clothing worn by the foreign prisoners. There was a separate room which had three wooden prison cell doors that had been carved with names and images by the prisoners in the 1700's.

Crown Square had a number of important buildings surrounding it - the Great Hall, the Royal Palace, the Scottish Honors (Crown Jewels) and an exhibition of the crowning of Scottish kings and queens. Luckily, there were no queues, apparently it can take up to 25 minutes to see the Honors during busy times.

The building off the Square is the Scottish National War Memorial for Fallen Servicemen. Every Scottish regiment is represented within the building and books record the names of every soldier who has died during active service.

The castle has a small cemetery for the dogs who have been regimental mascots. The castle is the regimental headquarters for the Scottish Highland Fusiliers.

On the upper ramparts sits Mons Meg, an enormous, big cannon that was gifted to Scotland by the Russians. It was the equivalent of the atom bomb in day. Although it was very slow to move, it could fire cannonballs for a couple of miles and destroy castle walls.

The last place we visited was St Margaret's chapel, which was built by King David for his mother.

As we left the castle, we started to walk down the Royal Mile, the road leading from the castle down to Holyrood Palace at the bottom. It was tourist central, every two shops in three were full of tartan and shortbread. The others were pubs and cafes. We had a quick look around some of the gift shops, without buying anything, before stopping for a coffee and scone (cider for David) in a cafe just off the Royal Mile.

Afterwards we booked ourselves in an evening tour with Mercat Tours, a walk through some of the city streets with tales of ghosts before a visit to the Blair Street Vaults.

We walked around the Christmas market and fair in Princes Street Gardens. It was a lot bigger than we first thought, there was a huge ferris wheel, carousels, craft and food stalls and amusement rides for kids.

We dropped off our bags at hotel before heading back out for some dinner. Dusit, a Thai restaurant, was just down the street from our hotel and whilst it didn't look busy, all the staff at least looked Thai so we decided to give it a try. When we walked in, we were asked if we had a reservation. That took us aback, but we were told we could get a table if we were off there by 7.30pm. That suited us perfectly because our tour started across town at 8pm. The food was absolutely delicious - Maria had Thai red curry with chicken while David went for a spicier duck curry.

As we walked up the Royal Mile again, it began to rain. Not really what we wanted for an evening walk around the dark streets of Edinburgh. We were met by Niels, our guide for the Ghosts and Ghouls tour, at the Mercat statue next to the St Giles Cathedral.

There were only 2 other couples beside us so it was a nice little group. It was still raining so Niels tried his best to keep us as dry as possible during the first 40 minutes where we walked around the streets and closes (narrow alleyways between multi storey housing). Niels told us stories of Edinburgh's past, the witch hunts, the old & new methods of public hangings, life in the closes which were dark and dirty and without sewage system and of the ghosts reputed to wander in the vicinity.

We were then taken to the underground vaults at Blair Street, and we walked down a couple of flights of stairs to take us below the street level to old vaults under South Bridge. South Bridge, a road joining the old and new town uses the bridge to cross the deep valley between the two. It doesn't seem like bridge because buildings were built around it in the same level and vaults were built in the lower levels.

The vaults were dark and the air was still, just couple of candles were lit to help us as we walked over the original uneven surfaces. The vaults were used by tradesmen to begin with, but they flooded easily during heavy rains and the merchandise got destroyed so they moved out. After came the illegal activities such as prostitution, whisky distilling and gambling.

The vaults are said to be actively haunted by at least nine entities. Among these are included a boy called Jack who tugs on visitor's clothing, the Happy Cobbler of Vault 5, the Sinister Black Lady of Vault 5 who is said to prey on expectant mothers, a phantom hound, an old lady, a man dressed in a cloak and top hat, the eerie figure of a man hanging from the roof of Vault 3 and the most famous phantom of all - "The Watcher". This figure has regularly been witnessed by visitors both in small and large groups. The apparition, dressed in a long blue frock coat, tri-corner hat and large leather boots, has been seen moving around the vaults breathing whisky breath on visitors and blocking doorways. One sighting in particular was witnessed by a group of 14 visitors and their guide all at the same time. Other manifestations include strange smells, lowering temperatures, stone throwing, phantom footfalls, the smashing up of a very heavy wooden church pew and dragging sounds with heavy breathing which terrified two members of Mercat's staff one morning. In recent times the phenomena in the Vaults has continued in the form of self lighting candles and candles being thrown to the floor by an unseen force. It is said that the entities take power from the visitors and as time goes on, the entities become more active and stronger.

Niels walked us through the various vaults by candlelight and told us stories of people who went in and never came back out, the ghosts who have been witnessed in each one and of visitor encounters. The Watcher seems to be the most witnessed entity and also the most scary.

In the last room we were told the story of a haunted hotel's attic room within the city although the name and exact location was never mentioned. We thankfully were not staying in an attic room.

After the walk around the vaults we were led upstairs to a cellar room for a glass of wine while the guide let us ask questions and told us more interesting stories. The most famous Edinburgh story being about Burke and Haire, body snatchers for the medical school. They started by digging up freshly buried bodies, but then went on to murder people to sell them on to Dr Knox at the University. When they were caught Haire turned Kings evidence which got Burke publicly hung while he and Knox were free, but public opinion towards the two had them fearing for their lives.

Another story was about the supposed tunnel between the Castle and Holyrood Palace. Drunken soldiers who discovered an entrance sent their bagpipe playing friend down the tunnel while they listened from the road above. Apparently they made it close to the Palace before the music suddenly stopped. Two more soldiers went down to find out what happened only to quickly come to a dead end and no piper. It is said that bagpipes can still be heard coming from under the Royal Mile.