Scotland Vacation October 2023 - Edinburgh

In October 2023, my husband had a work trip scheduled for London and I was planning on tagging along. Unfortunately, the conference he was going to attend was canceled. I told him I could still take a week off and we could travel somewhere else. So, we talked about it. We thought about going to the east coast of the U.S. to see the changing of the leaves, traveling to New York, going to Banff in Canada, and discussed several other locations. Since the trip would be without our son, we didn't want to go somewhere warm to scuba dive without Boogs. Then my husband asked me to think about a place I really wanted to visit. I said Scotland and he said that was exactly where he was thinking of going. So we planned the trip and headed to Scotland three weeks later.

We left Austin on Friday the 13th and landed at Heathrow in London on Saturday the 14th before heading to Edinburgh, Scotland. We had easy, uneventful flights. We arrived in Edinburgh around 3 o'clock in the afternoon, local time.

We checked into the Marriott Courtyard Hotel and settled in. The room was nice.

We walked around a bit and then had dinner at Nando's. We were pretty tired by that point and turned in early.

The next morning, we walked from our hotel to Edinburgh Castle for a scheduled tour with Little Fish tour company. Wow! Edinburgh Castle was amazing. It was so neat to take the tour and learn so much about its history. 

Entrance to Edinburgh Castle. There is a moat, 4 sets of doors, and a portcullis guarding the only entrance. The castle was built on top of an ancient dormant volcano.

It was 37 degrees F that morning. It was great to stand in the sunshine and listen to the tour guide but was pretty chilling standing in the shadows of the walls. Our tour guide was stellar. She shared so much history but was also very funny.

The path to the restrooms. 

The plaque my husband is reading said this room was quarters for the castle guards.

The view of where this cannon was aiming.

Stained glass in Mary's Chapel.

Mons Meg Cannon - Our guide said this is one of the largest cannons in Europe. It can fire a cannon ball 2 miles.

Overlooking the view of the castle entrance.

Interesting wall ornament. There were several of these gun wheels placed around the room.

There were also a couple of actual bagpipers near the castle. One was playing the theme music from the Outlander tv series. This was just a statue of one.

Prison cell in the castle. My husband said it felt pretty roomy.

Prison room. Inmates slept in the hammocks to avoid being chewed on by rats.

Scottish National War Memorial

This view of the moat shows how deep it is. There used to be spikes and water in the moat.

We wandered in and out of shops on the Royal Mile. My husband bought a beautiful cashmere scarf. Then we had lunch at a little pub with live music. It was quite a journey to find a place to eat. Many places were closed in the afternoon because it was a Sunday. Almost every place we tried was reservation only. We were very happy to find a place to eat traditional pub food. 

St. Giles Cathedral

Later in the afternoon, we walked up Calton Hill for some great views of the city.

Nelson Monument on Calton Hill.

There were many monuments on top of Calton hill - National Monument, Nelson Monument, Dugald Stewart Monument, Burns Monument, the Portuguese Cannon, and a few others.

You can see Edinburgh Castle from the top of Calton Hill.

Lots of stairs on the trails.

Arthur's Seat is the hill in the center of the picture below. I wanted to hike up there but we weren't sure if we would have time since we had booked a ghost tour that night.

At nine pm, we went to High Street to meet up with the Extreme Paranormal Underground Ghost Tour with City of Edinburgh Tours. The tour was about 1 1/2 hours long. We walked through Old Town, Greyfriars Kirkyard, and the South Bridge vaults. Black John, our tour guide, told us many "bloodcurling" stories from Edinburgh's dark history. Greyfriars Kirkyard was creepy to be in in the dark. Black John told us about spirits that sometimes follow people home from the Kirkyard. He said there were thousands of skeletons piled on top of each other, from the time of the plague, buried under where we were standing. When it rains heavily, the tour cannot go into the Kirkyard because the old bones start poking through the saturated ground.

The area in front of St. Giles Church used to be where executions took place.

The underground vault was a little creepy. Black John told of several encounters he had with ghosts in the vault. He seemed to really believe in ghosts. At one point when we were underground, one of the women on our tour jumped away from the wall and yelled, "Something just touched me!" Then her friend said they felt it too.

Black John said the underground chamber has documented ghost activity. Several years ago a BBC film crew filmed a documentary in the room and children's voices were heard singing Ring Around The Rosie when the video was played back, but the voices were not heard at the time of the filming.

Chamber where the orphan children of the plague were held. Black John said the toys in the room mysteriously move around the room.

The little plastic rat skeleton in the underground street chamber was a nice touch.

Black John told us that the white streak/mist in the picture below is the ghost of a woman named Mary who took care of plague orphans and was later accused of being a witch because she did not get sick with the plague. Our guide said he has talked with Mary several times when he is closing up the underground area after tours. He said Mary is a friendly ghost.

I love this picture of my husband on the staircase that leads to the underground. This pic was taken at the end of the tour as we were leaving.

We enjoyed our first full day in Edinburgh and were exhausted by the time we walked back to our hotel after the tour.