Edinburgh With another long weekend at the end of May, I decided to head up to Edinburgh with Matt, Kel, Cecilia and Bec. We boarded a train very early on Saturday morning for the 5 hour trip and managed to entertain ourselves by sleeping and then playing uno. We arrived in Edinburgh early afternoon and immediately went to our hostel, located just off the royal mile. The Royal Mile is the main street through Edinburgh's Old Town, and runs a mile in length from Edinburgh Castle at the top, down to Holyrood Palace. Feeling hungry, we decided to grab some lunch and went to a local pub, discovering that yes, pub food in Edinburgh was great. This was proven time and again over the weekend. We then spent the afternoon, wandering the Royal Mile and surrounding streets. After a lovely Mexican dinner, we had a few drinks in another pub and then crashed. Saturday morning we woke and immediately headed up to Edinburgh Castle, taking a tour through it and then exploring the museum and other rooms. The jewels were of course, just amazing, and I didn't want to even consider how much they were worth. Some of the crowns were so ornate and must have been quite heavy to wear also. After this, we visited a whisky distillery museum which I found absolutely hilarious and not worth it's entrance price. But it was certainly an education in a very scripted, well rehearsed spiel. After another pub lunch, we decided to board the Edinburgh sightseeing bus to take in the sites not located on the Royal Mile. This took through the New Town (New as it was built after the 1800's!), along Grassmarket and around various other places. We didn't actually get off the bus, and it just managed to prove what I'd already thought - that Edinburgh is a beautiful city. Spent the remainder of the afternoon wandering around the Princes' Street gardens before we met up with a friend of Matt's for dinner. Sunday morning I headed down and did a tour of Holyrood Palace, the residence of the Queen when she is in Edinburgh. The palace was very good and had some gorgeous furnishings. What I particularly liked was the history of the place, the stories about famous figures in history who lived there. A quick wander around the gardens followed and then I headed off to check out two cute museums - one chronicling the life of the people of Edinburgh, and other talking about professions etc of the people. Very small museums but interesting just the same. Then it was time to board our train to get back to London. On our way back, our train was cancelled and we had to change trains and divert to another line when a tree fell on the line. This unfortunately extended our 5 hour trip to 7! Needless to say, we were tired and bored and desperate to get off the train by the time we reached London. Other than the long journey home, I really enjoyed my weekend in Edinburgh. I would thoroughly recommend going there as it is beautiful and enough to do to fill a few days. The pub culture is alive and well, and the people are much more friendly than Londoners. And it has made me want to explore Scotland further.