The Royal Mile

We got up early after a long night of on-and-off sleep and had breakfast at the hotel restaurant, Bar + Block. We wanted a trial run of our walk to our pickup point for our tour tomorrow so we headed off on foot towards St Giles Cathedral and the Caffe Nero where we would meet tomorrow morning. We passed The Filling Station, where Thomas had the worst Chicago-style pizza ever on a previous trip. (It was just a flatbread with pepperoni.)

Holyrood Park

The weather was surprisingly warm and we quickly doffed our hoodies as we walked down the Mile to Parliament and Holyrood Palace before turning towards our destination, Holyrood Park. Our thought was to walk up to Arthur's Seat but the heat and the steep incline deterred us and we already had some magnificent views just climbing up to St Antony's Chapel. Only one section of the wall and a few surviving stones remain from the original three-story chapel and its 40-foot high tower. We made our way back down the hill and walked around one of the lochs, watching the ducks as they cavorted on the water before heading to the gift shop at Holyrood Palace. We considered taking the palace tour but were not in the mood so we headed on. Our plan was to have a drink on the Royal Mile but Edinburgh Fringe was in full swing. We watched a street performer climb a ladder without any support and then dodged all of the people trying to hand out fliers for various shows.

Dirty Dick's

We walked back to Princes Street to drop off some stuff at the hotel and then went looking for a pint. We ended up on Rose Street and wandered into Dirty Dick's, an authentic-looking Scottish pub. We each had a pint of beer at the bar before setting off on our next walk.

Royal Botanic Garden

We set off toward the Royal Botanic Garden, which turned out to be a bit more of a hike than we anticipated. The 70-acre garden was a great place to stroll, however, with many pretty flowers and trees and a Japanese garden with pond and bridges. Unfortunately the glasshouses are closed for renovation until 2030 so we were not able to view the 13,500 species of plants normally housed there.

Lunch

We'd passed the Orchard restaurant on the way to the gardens and it looked like a good place to grab a meal so we did. The fish and chips were excellent and Janie enjoyed Alex's favorite Scottish beer, Innis & Gunn. The walk back to our hotel was a slog as it was mostly uphill and both of us were worn out by the time we made it back. We stopped in Poundland to pick up some sodas and headed to the room to repack for the next day's adventure.

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