Scotland's Royals, Whisky, and Ghosts

Jan 25

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In one short weekend trip, we travelled like royals, I drank drams of whisky, and we failed to find any ghosts. For a weekend getaway, Edinburgh was surprisingly delightful and will visit again!

[divider class="" ]Planning:

In the UK accounting world, people can be “school leavers” where they work for 3 months, then go to school for 3 months. One of our friends, Rachel, left work last week and just began her one month of school in Edinburgh. She likes to think she forced us to come visit us in Edinburgh, but we are easily convinced to go anywhere! Once we determined a free date, we immediately went all-in!Edinburgh is relatively easy to get to from London. There are two different train routes - Virgin West and East Coast - which take about 4 and a half hours. Driving would take six hours plus the fact we both would be very stressed out about driving the entire time. Flights are typically cheap and leave at pretty good times throughout the day. As always, the closer you get to the date, the trip will get more expensive!

[divider class="" ]How: Flight/Train/Car??

Ultimately, we decided on traveling via train! When we went to book, it was less than a month or so before we were leaving and there were not any good flight prices. I do love a good train ride since I do not have to really move or make sure we have to get to the right gate, etc. From MK, we would take the Virgin West Coast train from MK to Crewe then transfer to the Edinburgh train! Total trip would be around 4.5 hours one way. Even better, I could get Mary Frances to the train station on time since she could easily work on the train![video width="720" height="1280" mp4="https://www.theunchartered.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/IMG_0114.mp4"][/video]From that point, our costs were very simple compared to our past Italy trip!Train: 83AirBnB: 50Private Photo Tour: 80Whisky: 3!!

[divider class="" ]Lodging:

As mentioned above, we booked our trip within a month of the date so our lodging options were limited in terms of my usual hostels, hotels, or really good AirBnBs. In addition, we also wanted to be near Haymarket since that is near Rachel. Fortunately, we snagged a good one! We rented a private room in the Haymarket neighboorhood where the hostess, Joyce, also cooked lovely breakfast!When we arrived, it was an easy ten minute walk from Haymarket. Her apartment was so nice and seemed newly renovated! Our room was a little small, but it was really nice, and warm! In the mornings, she provided either a warm continental breakfast or a full Scottish breakfast. They were so good!! We picked the continental breakfast on Saturday since we were rushed and the Scottish breakfast on Sunday. Both were very filling and was a great start to the day!