A Day in Edinburgh

July 17, 2025

Cycleblazer Lyle Macleod - who had a stint living in Glasgow with Kris in the nineties - had been reading our journal and commented to me a few weeks ago: “Glasgow is for the Scots, and Edinburgh is for the tourists.”

After a few days here in Edinburgh I heartily agree with that sentiment. This place is full of international tourists and we have heard more American voices in the last 36 hours than we have heard on our entire three month tour. Edinburgh is the predominant place people go when they visit Scotland and it shows. I dislike crowds of tourists so that takes the edge off my pleasure in visiting what is really a stunning, beautiful city. (I wonder how differently I would feel if we came back in the winter?)

Monument to Sir Walter Scott, believed to be the tallest monument dedicated to a writer.

The Palace of Holyroodhouse is the King's official residence in Scotland and is located at the end of Edinburgh's Royal Mile.

To me the Royal Mile (the one mile famous street with Edinburgh Castle on one end and the Palace of Holyroodhouse on the other) is just an unpleasant mob scene of shops, humans and tour groups. We didn’t walk the entire Mile but hit parts of it a few different times - enough to make me NOT want to do the whole thing. I have been to Edinburgh a couple of other times so didn’t feel any particular pressure to sightsee. Edinburgh Castle is a natural site to see, but we had recently seen two castles (Blair Atholl and Stirling Castle) and Dave was castled out - as was I for that matter!

We opted to have a relaxing breakfast and then do an urban hike; we walked out to the east end of town and climbed up to the Salisbury Crags. It was a stunning day, warm and sunny so we got great views. On the way back (partly on the Royal Mile) we passed the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the Scottish Parliament, and walked through the Edinburgh Waverly Train station. There were crowds, and plenty of people, even on the hike.

We wound up at the National Gallery of Scotland and sat down outside at the cafe and split a salad (and had an aperol spritz/beer) before we visited the Gallery. Dave had a hankering to see some art. When we pick Museums I tend to go for history, so I need to remember that Dave needs his art fix, and we got it today. The Gallery building is newish and did a great job presenting Old Masters and Scottish art. We really enjoyed it. I skipped the audible and that was a good decision. Sometimes I wind up being distracted so much with the audible that I forgot to just absorb the art. For me there was enough printed explanations to give me context - and I could just admire the art. We realized after that neither of us took a single picture inside the gallery - we just lost our focus!

That evening we ate in the Bistro at the hotel - and had another great meal. It made us miss France; we had French 75s for cocktails, which we both love and Dave had duck confit, a favorite. Yes, we live a tough life.

We are on the road again tomorrow, traveling through the Borders of Scotland for a week before arriving down in England at Hadrian’s wall.

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Lyle McLeodK and I had the incredibly good fortune to visit Edinburgh the first time (as a couple) on a rainy day (no surprise) in late October 1989. There were no tourists or anyone that we could remotely construe as tourists to be seen. We spent the day tromping around the Castle, Holyroodhouse, the Mile (still pretty tacky way back then) and were pretty exhausted as we were heading back to our car to drive back to Glasgow. We had parked near St Mary’s Episcopalian Cathedral in the West End and as we were walking by the cathedral we heard some music coming from inside. We peeked in and saw an empty church bar two musicians, one on a harpsichord and the other on violin who were in a final rehearsal for a concert they were giving the next day. We sat down, out of the rain, and were enthralled for the next 40 minutes or so with this private concert in an otherworldly setting. St Mary’s is the ‘home’ for one of the elite music school in the UK (Yehudi Menuhin was their patron) and these were probably a couple of their students. It’s a moment in time that Kirsten and I still remember so vividly 36 years later. Fortunately for us, this is often what we think of when Edinburgh is mentioned (we do have some tourist oriented horror stories too- did you see the ‘Gobble & Go’ restaurant on the mile???) so it is possible to have a magical time there … just maybe not in July ;)

Looks like a great trip and you seem to be finding some great bike routes, so much so that K and I are giving a Scotland tour seriously consideration.
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