Moving right along on our journey through Europe and the UK this Summer to… SCOTLAND!!! Oh my goodness words cannot even begin to describe how much we absolutely LOVED Scotland. I will say first though, just like I said in my Ireland post, that I know weather can play a huge part in traveling and we got sooooo lucky all throughout Ireland, Scotland and England with blue skies for two solid weeks! Having said that, Scotland is now one of my favorite countries I’ve ever visited (and I’ve been to sixteen in Europe and the UK) and Edinburgh is probably in my top three of favorite big cities. And as I always say, I’m not really a big city loving girl! Prior to visiting Ireland, Scotland and England… I’d actually been to London once about sixteen years ago for a day so I won’t count that ;)… I for some crazy reason envisioned Ireland and Scotland to kind of look the same. Literally no clue why! But they don’t AT ALL! I know… probably not a surprise to most of you BUT just throwing it out there that all three countries have so much to offer in completely different ways.
Another thing that I feel like can play such a huge role in your travel experience AND can be a huge stressor in planning a trip is… where to stay. One thing I have realized over and over and over again is that in pretty much every European/UK city I have visited, the “old town” is where you want to be. I guess in some ways if you aren’t familiar with traveling to Europe, a hotel or Airbnb listing stating that might not sound as appealing as it actually is. The old towns are always the historic, charming areas that are the non local-business district kind of areas if that makes sense.
So having said that, I now ALWAYS find hotels or Airbnbs in the old town of each city we visit. For Scotland, I found that in the old town of Edinburgh is the “real Diagon Alley”. It is called Victoria Street and it is PRECIOUS!!!! There are so many adorable shops and restaurants along the colorful, curved street including two Harry Potter stores. The place I chose for our entire stay in Scotland was THIS APARTMENT on Booking.com on Victoria Street and it was PERFECT!!!!!!!! As you may know from my last post on Ireland, I am VERY honest about everything including hotel/apartment reviews. It was a GREAT location, so cute and very roomy for Europe/UK! Our apartment was just a tad to the left of the red section of buildings in the above image on the second floor.
Basically overlooking the stretch of colorful buildings in the below image of my mom and the girls…
Addie’s Pants / Winter’s Sandals
Oh AND… if you are wanting a hotel in Edinburgh with a super fun vibe, John and I “snuck out” one evening while my mom was with the girls and grabbed a drink at the Virgin Hotel on Victoria Street and it was WOW!!!
As far as Edinburgh suggestions and recommendations, I can’t say that we explored and did the mega touristy thing too too much. I am not one to feel like I need to check off all the boxes for every city we visit unless they’ve just been on my personal list. Overall we love to walk around and see what we see, eat yummy food and do a little shopping. One MUST that we seemed to do over and over again was walking the Royal Mile. It’s a stretch of Old Town just a staircase or two above Victoria Street where we stayed with a literal mile of historic GORGEOUSNESS!!!! Shops, restaurants and street performers that are in my opinion the heart of Edinburgh as a tourist!
My Top / Crossbody / Cardigan / Jeans / John’s Top / Jeans
First, here are a few more peeks at Victoria Street…
John’s Top / Jeans
And several snapshots along The Royal Mile…
My Top / Crossbody / Cardigan / Leggings / Sneakers / John’s Top / Cardigan / Jeans / Shoes
My Top / Crossbody / Cardigan / Leggings / Sneakers / John’s Tee / Cardigan / Jeans / Shoes
My Top / Cardigan / Jeans / Sandals
At one end of the Royal Mile you will find Edinburgh Castle which is the end closest to where we stayed and at the other is the Palace of Holyroodhouse. We chose to purchase tickets to tour the Castle and it was beautiful!!! Depending on how much you love architecture, historic buildings and such, I’d say defintetely tour one of the two. We chose this one simply because it was bigger and older. And if you keep up with royal traditions at all, it is also where they keep the Stone of Destiny which we were able to see. It had just made it’s way back to the castle from King Charles III’s Coronation.P.S tickets do sell out so make sure and get them ahead of time! We purchased ours online the day prior.
My Top / Crossbody / Pants
John’s Top / Cardigan / Jeans / Shoes
Another really pretty area of Edinburgh is the area around the Scott Monument. There’s a park right next to the monument that has beautiful views of the city…
And finally, if you are looking for a quaint little IG worthy village area, walk or Uber to Dean’s village! It’s tiny and not too too much to see but as you can see from the image below…. WORTH IT!
And a few more randoms from our time in Edinburgh…
The Scottish Highlands & Jacobite Steam Train!
Alright, here’s where my honesty and rambling will ensue. I am honestly completely 50/50 on how I felt about this next part…
So long story short, this Summer was basically a redo of our 2020 Summer adventure plans that obviously bit the dust once Covid hit. And in 2020, Addie was a HUGEEEEEE Harry Potter fan. And Winnie now loves it too BUT Addie was a mega fan. So back in 2020 I found that you can ride the “real” Hogwarts Express train so obviously that was a MUST!
Insert honesty… so exactly 50% of me says this experience was worth it because the area north of Edinburgh called the Scottish Highalnds is MEGA. BEAUTIFUL! A must see however you can make that work. Just not sure if the way we did it was best and worth it.
If you follow me often, you know that I am not a fan of any kind of group travel (our new AW TRAVEL is different for this exact reason I promise!!!) or group experiences, day trips, etc. Long story… BUT, I booked our Jacobite Steam Train Ride as a day trip experience and boy was it a DAY trip!!!! LOLOL. I am not sure how to necessarily do it differently BUT just giving you a heads up because it was NOT clear during the booking process.
For this day trip, we headed to the Edinburgh train station early one morning to catch the group bus at around 7:15am. That bus then takes you to the starting point of the train ride which is in Mallaig, Scotland. Which was an almost FIVE HOUR bus ride!!! That’s the part that I did NOT realize. It’s really only a maybe 2-3 hour drive but I guess on a bus going at a slower speed with multiple potty breaks, it took FOREVERRRRR!!! The upside was that the ride was STUNNING! Honestly just as or even more stunning than the scenic train ride. I guess just being on a bus with like 22 other people is not my personal favorite. Just giving y’all a big heads up!!!
Once in Mallaig, you have a very short time to grab a super quick lunch and then you board the train. Just a reminder… I always try to be very positive but also really honest. The train is very old, has no a/c and is super stuffy. Plus, it’s the exact ride we took up to the train but with dirty windows. Just being HONEST!!!
Overall, yes AMAZING and so glad we did it and would absolutely choose doing it over not doing it BUT if you can get up there a different way, DO IT!!! Because the train ride is maybe 45 minutes and we then had a FIVE HOUR ride back! So that is a TEN HOUR bus ride. Just saying. SO moral of the story… the Highlands are WORTH IT if you can just get there a different way or maybe make it more than a day trip.
My Top / Crossbody / Cardigan / Leggings / Sneakers / John’s Polo / Jeans / Shoes / Addie’s Pants / Winter’s Sandals
Here are a few images from the GORGEOUSSSS Scottish Highlands! So incredible that John and I want to take a trip back just to see more and stay there!
XOXO, Brittany Palazzo
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