Edinburgh's Old Town

The road up to Edinburgh Castle.
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Wow... Edinburgh is absolutely gorgeous!!  Granted, I was only there for a little over a day, and we only stayed in the old town, but it was just as I had imagined it.  Honestly, I think Edinburgh is one of my favorite--if not favorite--places I've visited so far.

We arrived at Edinburgh airport in the evening on the 29th, and checked in to the hostel.  The hostel was smack-dab in the middle of Old Town, which was exactly where we wanted to be.  We dropped our stuff off, and then went out to dinner at this fantastic Italian place a little ways away.  That was the extent of our first night... really exciting, huh?

View of the castle from the front parking lot/place.
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The hostel was fine... my only issue was the condition of the linens in our room.  They gave us a little pile of sheets upon check-in, but they just turned out to be little sacks to sleep in.  Unfortunately, the little sacks weren't big enough to go up to the pillow, and my pillow case had drool marks on it from the previous user.  SO, because I find that REPULSIVE (I said bad things in a review, with the hopes that it is fixed for following people), I used a camisole as a pillow case.  They didn't have breakfast, but they had wireless internet in the lobby, so it made up for it.

Me in front of the craggy front view of the castle.
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On Tuesday morning we walked up to Edinburgh castle, and paid 11 pounds to get in.  YEAH.  22 dollars.  Scotland was beautiful, and I'd recommend going, but not unless you can swim in your pool of gold coins like Uncle Scrooge, or until the exchange rate drops dramatically.  The castle, though, was really neat, and offered great views of the city.

The rest of the day was spent wandering up and down the Royal Mile, the big touristy district in Edinburgh.  It shoots straight through Old Town, and there are bunches of landmarks along it.  At the one end is Edinburgh Castle, then St Giles' Cathedral, and at the other end, the Scottish Parilament and the still-royally-used Palace of Holyroodhouse.  There's a HUUUUGE craggy rock right next to those latter two, and we'd have climbed it if it we'd have stayed in Edinburgh for more than a day.  We didn't do much souvenir-shopping, because a 15-pound scarf was a 30-dollar scarf, and I couldn't justify that.

The Inner Barrier of the castle--this wrapped all around the front of the castle as a way to further protect the castle upon attack.
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That was basically all we did there... I really wish we had stayed longer.  I'd also love to go to other places in Scotland--the scenery was BEAUTIFUL.  It was so green, so rocky... It seems easy enough to describe it, but at the same time, there's no way I can convey how awesome it is, because I'm no good at describing these things.  I guess the moral of the story is, "go, but be prepared to suck your bank account dry."

I'd definitely LOVE to go back.