Author Topic: Visit to Edinburgh  (Read 4645 times)

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Offline Jacqui Harvey

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Re: Visit to Edinburgh
« Reply #10 on: March 07, 2014, 10:25:37 AM »
Colwyn, you might enjoy a visit to Leith, very nice area down by the old docks and also you can go on board the Royal Yacht Britannia at the Ocean Terminal Shopping Centre. (a couple of floors of shops and restaurants that Hilary may like) On the top floor entrance to the Britannia is a display of it's History and a souvenir shop.   Take the No 35 bus to the Ocean Terminal from Prince Street.   Other buses down to Leith also stop off at the Parliament
This may be of use to you brief history of Leith and bus numbers.  .  http://wikitravel.org/en/Edinburgh/Leith



Offline chris35

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Re: Visit to Edinburgh
« Reply #11 on: March 07, 2014, 11:59:18 AM »
The Grassmarket is at the back of the Castle.  So if you walk up the road at the Station Entrance and turn right at the top so you are walking back parallel to Prince Street Gardens you will come to it.  Look for it on Google Earth and you will see it's location.  We usually stay 5 minutes walk from the Grassmarket, at the Knight Residence which is a fabulous place and has the bonus of a secure car park.



Thanks for the info, we will check it out next time. Byetheway we have just watched a film "Sunshine on Leith", a great film about the area and music by The Proclaimers. Highly recommend it.   :)

Offline Brianbern

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Re: Visit to Edinburgh
« Reply #12 on: March 07, 2014, 13:14:49 PM »
The Cafe Royal does have 'a real interior' & if you visit the website via the link I posted earlier & read its history you will find that it was established in 1826 - moved in 1863 to its present location just off Princes Street & became a listed building in 1970!


Offline JulieDiane

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Re: Visit to Edinburgh
« Reply #13 on: March 07, 2014, 18:47:08 PM »
We came home yesterday from staying 6 days in edinburgh, we stayed at Apex International hotel grassmarket, really well situated for visiting everything around edinburgh. The oldest pub in Edinburgh is opposite the hotel, The whiteheart Inn, it's possibly the smallest pub too, but lovely Scottish food & entertainment each evening, usually a guitar & singer, I think it was first a pub in the 15th century. Lovely italian restaurant there too Ristorante Gennaro. Loads to see & do, we never went to the castle this year, which our hotel had fabulous views of, my hubby's Scottish so have visited many times before. We did go to Mary Kings Close tour which was interesting. Also went to the Royal Yatch Britannia, was interesting, busses from princess street are 11, 22 & 35, probably more too if you were to investigate, spent an evening at the theatre, was a nice night out. If you visit the visit Scotland site your bound to get loads of ideas on what to see/do. The forth bridge is close by & the opposite side is a sea life centre if you have children, whatever you do, enjoy!!!  :)

Offline GordonA

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Re: Visit to Edinburgh
« Reply #14 on: March 08, 2014, 01:51:25 AM »
Colwyn, if I may be so bold, as someone who was brought up not far from Edinburgh, may I suggest that you "Google" the following link;

http://www.bestofedinburgh.com/Page.asp?Title=Pubs&Section=70&Page=3

There are quite a few extremely interesting "watering holes" on The Royal Mile, as well as The Lawnmarket, including the famous Deacon Brodies Tavern.;

Deacon Brodie's Tavern, with its upstairs restaurant, is situated on the Lawnmarket at its junction with Bank Street. It is a large traditional pub, popular with tourists and with a wonderfully ornate thistle ceiling. It is named after real life cabinet-maker, William Brodie who was elected a Deacon Councillor of the City of Edinburgh in 1781. By day Brodie was an outwardly respectable citizen and pillar of society, but by "night he was a gambler, a thief, dissipated and licentious." To support his lavish lifestyle Brodie would copy the keys of his wealthy clients and return at night to rob them. He escaped to the Netherlands after being recognised at the scene of one of his crimes only to be caught and returned to Scotland. He was hanged from the city's new gallows at the Tolbooth (which ironically it is said he had a hand in designing) on 1 October 1788. Such was the public interest in the case that it was said to have been attended by a crowd of over 25,000. It is also said that the story of Deacon Brodie later served as the inspiration for Robert Louis Stevenson's story, "The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde".

Have a wonderful time .

Offline Colwyn

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Re: Visit to Edinburgh
« Reply #15 on: April 02, 2014, 14:37:43 PM »
Just back from Edinburgh. We had a very good time. My daughter has only been there a few weeks and hadn't seen much so we went out and about with her. We did the usual touristy things. We went to the Castle and explored the prison and called in Deacon Brodies after. Another day we took the bus down to Leith but decided to pass on the Royal Yacht and went off to the Botanical Gardens instead. By lucky chance it was the first day of the Spring Flower Show and Hilary now as a list of the new daffodil varieties that I am instructed to look out for in Autumn. On our last day we went to the National Gallery for the Titian exhibition and much else. The girls went off to Harvey Nics for lunch and I was let off the leash to explore Rose Street. I had hoped to meet up with another CBF member but he was called to his desk so I went alone. I'll let you know how I got in a separate post.

So we had a good time, especially when I put out of my mind that it was 7C in Edinburgh whilst it was 18C in Bristol. I must say I did struggle with the accent quite a bit, and in return people struggled with mine. Not surprising I suppose since my soft West Country burr is probably an octave deeper than the sharp Edinburgh tones.

I'd like to thank all those members who suggested things to do and places to go in Edinburgh. We couldn't do them all but we did quite a lot.

Offline Colwyn

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Re: Visit to Edinburgh
« Reply #16 on: April 02, 2014, 17:04:57 PM »
I did some training before exploring Rose Street. At Deacon Brodies I learned to pronounce Deuchars "duke-arse" and things got easier thereafter. In my daughter's local (not that she had ever used it) I extended my knowledge via a complimentary bar snack of haggis and potatoes (it was named something that sounded like "sloshy"]. The pub was The Diggers (aka Athletic Arms) and a damn good pub it was too. I had got used to whacking price of ale; £3.75 seemed standard. At first I thought it must be tourist, town centre prices but out in Gorgie, just along from the Diggers, I paid a whopping £3.95. Steeling myself for this price onslaught I left Hilary and my daughter outside Harvey Nics and set off for Rose Street.

I started at the "top" end with a pint in Milnes Of Rose Street. It was a large, grand pub with splendid woodwork, very busy and with good atmosphere. I drank Scottish Homecoming - which was horrible. If this was the homecoming promised to Jock he would do well to stay away for longer. I left and decided to walk to the other end of the Rose Street and walk back towards my meeting place with Hilary. At the far end there was a false start when I was informed in the first pub that they had no pump ales. What a thing! Is that legal? If so, it shouldn't be! So I went across the street to Dirty Dicks setting aside misgivings about the name. I had a nice enough pint of Bitter & Twisted and enjoyed the excellent 1960s music that they were playing. My next stop was Gordons - well, I thought, because of the name I'll just have to try it. I found myself the only customer in a small pub that smelled strongly of polish. Choosing a beer was easy; they only had one - Duke Arse Deuchars - which, to my surprise was rather good and, at £3.30 the cheapest on the street. A quiet pub was actually what I needed at this stage. I had a three-hour pass and had to pace myself. So I had intended to find somewhere to read a few of chapters of my Kindle book. A snug bench in a window alcove was ideal. (I am reading F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Beautiful and The Damned, am a quarter of the way through it and can't make up my mind whether I like it or not). The reason for the polish smell soon became clear. The tables were topped with brass set in wooden surrounds and the barman was going round each in turn (except mine) with a cloth and a bottle of BRASSO. I don't know whether Monday was his day to do this task, but judging by the impressive amount of elbow grease he applied to the task it might have been that the 1st was cleaning day for the whole month, or even April 1st for the whole year. My next stop was the Auld Hundred a rather undistinguished place, frankly it was dull, up a few steps from the front door but the Deuchars was again good, and overall the place was OK. My final stop was the Rose Street Brewery. I had a pint of Copper Cascade which was very good indeed; definitely the best beer that I had on the Street. The atmosphere was fine and, when I fell into conversation with the landlady/barmaid, she told me the pub showed all sorts of sport on the TV; all sports, that is, with the exception of football which was not allowed. I suggested that she put up a poster in the window displaying this so that people like myself would be attracted to the place. She replied that they had done this but had received a lot of objections on grounds of discrimination. The policy continued, however, without advertisement. She was from Melrose where they eschewed football and cared mostly for rugby. Apparently they have a fine women's team there.

So ended my afternoon exploration of Rose Street. I met up with Hilary and my daughter. Was reassured that they had bought nothing at Harvey Nics other than their lunch. And jumped on the 34 bus to back out of town.



Offline GordonA

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Re: Visit to Edinburgh
« Reply #17 on: April 02, 2014, 17:17:24 PM »
Gordons, Says it all really !  ;D   :angel:

Offline mercury

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Re: Visit to Edinburgh
« Reply #18 on: April 02, 2014, 17:33:00 PM »
Love Colwyn's tales... He was one of the reasons I first got addicted to this forum...

Offline Colwyn

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Re: Visit to Edinburgh
« Reply #19 on: September 20, 2017, 15:09:14 PM »
I have been to Edinburgh many times now so this visit I thought I could visit the Oxford Bar without showing myself up as flagrant literary tourist. I approached the pub with some apprehension as, I hoped, a restrained literary tourist and not a sycophantic gawper, and worried that the pub would be crammed with the latter. Along one of central Edinburgh's dirtiest streets I found the drinking hole with an outside that demands to be called "unprepossessing" (see photo). The innards weren't much better but more or less what I had anticipated. The Back Room was quite a lot bigger than I had had expected and the Front Room very much smaller (so small as to rival the bar of the White Hart on The Centre in Bristol - where I popped in today just to check - but the Lion has no other room whereas the Ox, famously, does. As for the rest, dark wood floors, walls and furniture exactly as expected. And no crowds of tourists: indeed no crowds at all. Just a few dour drinkers watching daytime TV in the Front Room. Naturally I settled myself in the Back Room with my pint of Deuchars. The street sign on the pavement proclaims "Men at Work" but none were to be found in the Ox apart from the lethargic barman.

[For those who are unaware of the significance of the Oxford Bar I'm sorry this post has wasted your time - unless, of course, you delve into the matter via a search engine and follow the trail signposted.]






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