FIRST TIME IN EDINBURGH, THE ROYAL MILE, FOOD, EDINBURGH CASTLE

The city of Edinburgh, pronounced “ed-in-bruh”, is a wonderful place to see the Scottish culture for the first time. From the friendly people to the amazing food, this place will leave an impression. I was so excited to walk outside every day and hear bagpipes playing in the distance! Overall, this city is very walkable although there are Ubers available if you need a lift.

On my first day here, some friends and I decided to get an early start and walk to breakfast. The architecture in Edinburgh is so beautiful and I’m so grateful we got to see a lot of the city!

The highest church in Edinburgh, which is along the Royal Mile. This church is named the Highland Tolbooth St. John’s Church.

For breakfast, we went to Refinery at St. Andrew Square. The food was great, along with the service. The interior was very cool so it was a great start to Scotland!

Next, we headed to the Royal Mile. Along the way, we saw more of this gorgeous city. Let’s look at that first!

A fun fact about statues with horses (shoutout to my friend Devyn for telling me this!). If the horse is rearing (two feet in the air) then it indicates the rider died in battle. One front leg up indicates an injury during the battle and later, the rider died due to the battle wounds. If all four of the horse’s legs are on the ground, then the rider died outside of battle. The picture above is the Royal Scots Greys Monument.

The first blooms of Spring have been spotted!

As we walked up the hill to the Castle, which took about 10 minutes, we got a great view of Princes Street, one of the main shopping streets in the city.

Time to catch my breath! The stunning Edinburgh Castle in all its glory. You do have to pay to go inside, so because we are “broke” college students, we decided to just admire it from the outside:)

We started the Royal Mile Walk at the Castle. This street is a famous walk in the city so we had to check it out for ourselves. The street is lined with clan scarf shops of wool and cashmere, restaurants, hotels, and gift shops.