Edinburgh, United Kingdom

We woke to another grey day, but without as chilly a wind like yesterday so I guess that was a bonus. Experiencing an English summer is part of this holiday however, I don’t think either of us was prepared for such a run of dull and really cold days for June which should be well and truly summer here. Consistently the temperature has been 12 degrees – and will fluctuate down to 11 or up to 15 in the heat of the day for a very short period if, and I mean if the sun peaks out through a hole for 10 minutes. This is what we would call a bad winter day in the Bay of Plenty and accordingly we are finding it a bit cold and getting over it after 5 days in a row. Vanity is even appearing as I think I am loosing my Greek tan!

Having had a very English moan about the weather we did enjoy another upper class breakfast of a cheese toastie with courgette, spring onion, egg and worstcheter sauce, Vern chose pancakes bacon and egg maple and raspberry jam. We had a nice chat with hosts about the funny and not so funny side of running a BB and suggested it would make a great TV show or Theatre play. I guess Faulty Towers was one back in the day. It was great and hilarious finding out a few funny stories about guests insisting they were in right guest house when they are not, forgetting which day they are checking out and parking the wrong way on one way streets.

We purchased another day bus pass to town then train from Waverly station to Queens South Wharf (20 minutes) to get a boat trip around the bridges in the Firth of Forth of and island visit to Inchcolm where we would hopefully see a few puffins, grey seals and other birds. From the train station you take a wooded walkway for a little over 1km down to the harbour. We saw wild pigeons nesting and other cute birds like red breasted Robin. There were roses and other flowers on the border rambling into the reserve so the sweet spicy scent of roses is never far away.

It was just after 12pm when we got to the ticket office at the bottom only to be advised that sailings in the afternoon do the bridges only and not the island where the puffins are. I was gutted. The nice lady did say that not many come up the firth, and we were more likely to see them at the ‘Seabird’ centre down the coast an hour, where they do cruises to the Isle of May. It was too late to make it in the afternoon and tomorrow we are off to the Northern Lakes district and it would gobble too much of our 2 days there. We sat at the Firth a little and considered our options. We always have our iPad with us, and with the local SD card we have pretty good coverage and I googled puffins for York where we have 3 nights in the following stop and you can see some 1hr north from there so whether depending we will try and give that a go.

We headed back up the hill (134 steps) then walk to the train station and stopped in the city to have a look at an upmarket department store in ‘New Town’ and have some lunch. To our delight they had ‘toasted haggis, mozzarella and chutney” sandwiches of which we shared one with our cuppa – it was so delicious and we savoured every buttery, aromatic crumb. We didn’t find anything in budget despite the big sale so returned home to rest catch up on a blog before going out for dinner in our local area.

Dinner was again of a very good standard. Our experience of dining here has overall been better than expected and I think the poor reputation that the UK has for food is not quite justified. We have seen a range from the boring, bland and poor to the very fresh, upmarket and exciting with lots of organic and vegetables to be enjoyed. In fact percentage wise we have eaten better here than in Europe and America on our last visits. Back to dinner we chose a pub which had tried to get into the first night but they were full and we were too late (nearly 9pm) but the food had looked great through the window. We shared a haggis mash (potato, swede, spring onion, cabbage) in a whiskey cream sauce £4.85 entree and it was amazing, followed by fish and chips for Vern and a small mussel bowl (cream, wine, parsley sauce) and crusty bread for me. I got 500gr mussels for a small bowl! Sure the shells weigh a bit, but it was still a very good portion that filled me up. I got tap cider too – which is always very easy to drink. They even made their own tartare for the fish and chips meal which was very nice. Mussels over here are tiny compared to our Green Lipped (I has similar small ones in France) but I enjoy them more – they are sweeter, delicate and very tender.

We ambled home which was only a little over 10 minutes taking in the last sights of the tall victorian homes side by side each with their tiny front entries many decorated with garden plantings, some even with mini terraced gardens, stones, and water features.