Sunny Edinburgh!

My 'weekend' was actually 24 hours. Which started on Saturday morning with an early start at Birmingham airport .. but after less than an hour's flight, we'd landed into a new world of beautiful buildings, haggis, shortbread biscuits, bagpipes and tartan! We were also surprised to be greeted by some October sunshine!

The new tram link (which opened in 2014) runs from Edinburgh airport straight into city centre and is both easy and convenient. The 'station' (small double platform & with an even smaller place to grab a hot drink) is literally only a few moments walk from the airport terminal itself. Tickets are purchased at the machine on the platform and away you go ...I think it was about £5.50 per person for a single journey into the city centre.

Some 30 mins ish later we had arrived onto the infamous Princes Street, (Georgian buildings/shops/ and a beautiful park) and departed the smooth & easy tram journey to continue on foot to our hotel .. only a few minutes walk away.

After we'd checked into our hotel and got ourselves sorted with some lunch, we went off to buy tickets for the hop-on-hop-off-bus which would take us to visit the Queens Cruise Liner "The Royal Yacht Britannia" which is now permanently docked at Leith Waterfront about 30 mins from the city. The bus was quite a fun way to make your way to see the liner & let's you view a good amount of Edinburgh's streets on the way ... plus there's an interesting commentary for those who like to know what they are looking at, and some quirky facts... but those who prefer to, they can simply day dream their way to the docks !

The ship is extremely interesting and didn't disappoint my (nor my mum's!) expectations ... the self guided tour with audio handset was excellent too. What somewhat surprised me about this ship was its lack of lavish decor, and how dated it felt ... although built in 1953 it was still being used by our Royal family as late as 1997 so I expected it to look differently inside to how it actually was. "A world away .." in fact ...from any modern ship that I myself have cruised on during the in the last (even) ten years. Plain white walls, and dated furniture adorned the cabins. But the magic that our Queen loved about this ship was definitely not its material items - she loved the privacy it gave her, and the time she enjoyed holidaying with her family. The photos on the walls of the ship showed the testimonies to her time that she loved spending on-board Britannia.

On Sunday morning we saw a snippet of the "Royal Mile" and its charm with its splendid old buildings, hidden alley-ways, boutique style shops and even a pub dating back to 1742. The sun was creating long shadows onto the cobbles and a bagpiper could be heard somewhere not far away.

So that was Edinburgh... ! Definitely worth investing one weekend (or 24 hours!) of your life to spend some time exploring (with a loved one)this city that really does have something different about it....

Highly recommended!