Ye’ll Tak’ the High Road and I’ll Tak’ the High Road

Today was a magical vacation day. We let ourselves sleep in and had a leisurely morning before heading over to Edinburgh Castle to try to exchange our tickets from the tour we missed yesterday. Unfortunately, the morning was booked but they could fit us in for the afternoon, so we explored the Royal Mile (a mile long strip of road with historical sites, shops, and restaurants), listening to the Rick Steves’ audio tour as we went. At the bottom of the Royal Mile, we started our hike up to Aurthur’s Seat, the peak of an inactive 822 foot volcano.

This fluffy puppy did not want to go back down the hill.

We had beautiful, cool weather for our hike, surrounded by green grass and bright yellow gorse blooms. It was a bit steep in some places and at times I was a little nervous about whether the trek back down would be precarious, but the views were magnificent and the trip down wasn’t too scary. I do not think Chuck was very enthused with my modified rendition of Bonnie Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond, but he was a good sport.

Ohhhhh, ye’ll tak’ the high rrroad and I’ll tak’ the high rrroad
And we’ll be on top of a big hill
But me and my trrue love took a verry wrrrong turrrn
Because these arrren’t the banks of Loch Looomooonndd…

We made it back down with plenty of time to grab ice cream from the ice cream truck strategically parked at the bottom of the hill and then grabbed a late lunch at Oink Hog Roast. Oink serves really delicious pulled pork sandwiches from hogs that are smoked for 16 hours and come with fun toppings like haggis or sage and onion. After lunch, we headed to Edinburgh Castle for our tour.

It was quite a bit of walking and hill/stair climbing, which was tough given that we’d just climbed a volcano – but worth it. We weren’t sure whether the Stone of Scone (coronation stone) would have already made the trip back from London, where it was visiting for the coronation, so were very excited to see that it had made its return to Edinburgh Castle.

Today’s Highlights:

  • Informative audio tours (Rick Steves’ Royal Mile tour and the Edinburgh Castle audio tour)
  • Bagpipes
  • Beautiful vistas on our hike
  • A delicious pulled pork sandwich with sage, onion, and apple
  • A bright, sunny day, which we hear is rare for Edinburgh
  • Getting to see the Stone of Scone
  • A nice whisky after dinner

Tomorrow’s Proposed Adventure(s):

  • National Museum of Scotland
  • Scottish National Gallery
  • More whisky

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