48 Hours in Edinburgh

Last month myself and Kevin spent a weekend in Edinburgh. It was our first time visiting Scotland and Edinburgh has always been on our travel bucket list.

How to Get There

We flew with Aer Lingus Regional (yes the propeller fellas!) from Cork to Edinburgh. I was a little anxious when we first sat in the plane as it's tiny but once we were settled I was fine so don't let that put you off! The flight left at about 7pm on Friday and took about an hour and a half. We got a late flight home on Sunday at around 9.30pm.

When we arrived in the airport we got the Airlink Bus to Princes St which was really cheap.

Where to Stay

After staying in an apartment in New York we decided to do the same in Edinburgh. We stayed in Fountain Court Braid on Thistle St which was a great location. It worked out around the same price as hotels for the 2 nights and it was lovely.

What to Do

We decided to do the Hop on Hop off Bus Tour to see most of the city which you can prebook online here. This was great as Edinburgh is a small enough city so we were able to see lots of sights and get off wherever we wanted.

We visited Edinburgh Zoo and loved it! Although I have to say I've never seen so many hills in my life!!!! But the views are worth it once you reach the top. The highlight for us was seeing the Pandas. They were the CUTEST! Apparently they sleep most of the day so we were SO lucky to see them playing outside and eating their bamboo. The zoo also had Koalas which were adorable and the usual animals like tigers, zebras and monkeys. It's definitely worth a trip if you're in Edinburgh.

We visited Edinburgh Castle although we didn't go into it. We climbed up the hill to it and the views are fab. I have to say though we were a little underwhelmed when we reached the top but I think that's because we had seen the views gradually as we walked up. 

We also visited The Elephant House cafe where JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone. We also went to Tom Riddle's grave in Greyfriars Kirkyard which is where JK Rowling got the inspiration for Voldemort's character.

We did a bit of shopping on Princes St but to be honest they had most of the same shops that we had here. I did go to Superdrug and got some make up and got a few bits in Primark.

Since the weather was gorgeous while we were there, we went and got ice creams and sat in Princes St Gardens which was lovely to just chill out in whilst still being really close to the city centre.

We visited the Old Town of Edinburgh which was gorgeous. Lots of people playing the bagpipes and there was a great atmosphere around the place. We also popped into St Giles' Cathedral which was gorgeous inside.

We found the 2 days plenty in Edinburgh. We saw loads but weren't ran off our feet either. Hope you enjoyed reading this! Now it's time to start planning our next trip!

Just Touched Down in London Town

So our first trip of 2016 was a birthday trip for Kevin to London! During the Black Friday sales, Ryanair had return flights to London (and probably other places) for €4 per person. No that's not a mistake...I did mean €4!!!! So I got return flights for us both for a ridiculous €8!! We flew from Cork (which we haven't done in SO long and it was so handy!) and arrived in Stansted at around 8 a.m. It was a very short trip as we arrived home early on Sunday but considering the price of the flights, we didn't mind!

We stayed in the Thistle Euston which was less than a 5 min walk to the tube station. It was a perfect location as we were only about a 5-10 min journey on the tube to Oxford St. The hotel was gorgeous and we really enjoyed our stay there.

Since we only had one day there we wanted to see as much sightseeing stuff as possible, without having a jam packed day, so we decided to do the open top bus tour. We booked the Golden Tours hop on hop off bus tour which brought us on a guided tour to all of London's main attractions. We chose to stay on the bus but you can hop on and hop off as much as you like all day. Big Ben and Westminster Abbey were our fav - the architecture is just amazing! It was Kevin's first time in London and he loved it! Afterwards we headed to Oxford Street for some retail therapy!

 

We had a lovely, though very short, trip and we can't wait to go back again! Let me know what you like to do in London so we'll know for our next trip :)

Hopefully, there'll be many more travel posts on my blog for 2016 :)