The bright red phone booths across the UK are always catching my eye! I have about a gazillion photos of these booths from hikes and walks and travels in the last three years. This one is from the Coast to Coast walk in Grasmere with Diane.

But there are two red phone booths that I go back to again and again.

(Hello matching Arkansas shirts for Sarabeth and me!)

They are bright and clean and always ready for your photo! Also they are right next to the cleanest free bathrooms in Edinburgh. HANDY!

(Elizabeth and Simon. Incidentally this was Simon’s last trip to Edinburgh. He says he is never going again because “all we do is walk around…”)

These two gems are right inside the walls of Edinburgh Castle.

(Rhonda and Carol saying hello!)

When you approach the castle, you can actually get pretty far up into it before you have to present a ticket. Even if you aren’t going to the castle, you should walk up and say hello to William Wallace and Robert the Bruce who are on either side of the entrance. The ticket lines are just inside the first entrance to the right, but to the left are these two phone booths (and the bathrooms), which you can visit without a ticket. (You can also walk all the way up to the gift shop and look out from the walls that are around the ticket office to the streets below.)

I made what will mostly likely be my last trip to these bright booths in April with these two sweet friends, Donna and Tanja.

Of course, I also love the phone booths that appear in the middle of nowhere! This one is my sister in Kirk Yetholm, Scotland along St Cuthbert’s Way (also the end of the Pennine Way).

Do you have a favorite red phone booth in the UK? Do tell me where it is!

The post Visiting Edinburgh: Red Phone Booths appeared first on Alison Chino.

Last week I took Ben and Simon to Edinburgh for the day because for Christmas, we gave the boys tickets to see The Lion King.

This is the second time we’ve gone to Edinburgh just for the day, and I have grown to really enjoy doing it this way. We hop on the train early in the morning and ride it back late at night.

We had the prettiest January day I’ve seen so far in Scotland, which was such a gift after being almost blown away on our last visit.

The boys and I walked all around Calton Hill, taking pictures of the city, reading about the monuments and enjoying the sunshine.

Oh and yes, we had this strange encounter with an art exhibition.

I must say that I love getting the chance to travel with only one or two of my kids. There is less need for compromise and I’m able to let them lead and make decisions about what to do without all the arguing.

Ben chose a lot of what we did in Edinburgh, and it was fun for him that he is starting to know his way around the city.

University students have a habit of rubbing the toe of this Hume statue for luck around exam time. Ben does not have any exams this year, but he’s still collecting luck.

Ben and Simon picked out a restaurant together after we walked through Grassmarket.

I must say that they chose very well. Both boys ordered super yummy pizza at Made in Italy. And I had lasagne with super thin sheets of homemade pasta stacked together. So divine.

Plus Italian desserts and coffee.

Perfect.

After lunch we made our way over to the Edinburgh Playhouse to see The Lion King!

Everyone’s favorite moment of the play was the beginning when all the animals arrive. AMAZING! There was an older gentleman sitting next to Simon and he watched Simon as much as he did the play, which was super sweet to me. When the elephant came down the aisle next to us, he said to Simon, “Look! Look! Do you see the olli-phant?!” Super cutie!

We had matinee tickets so we were able to grab a bite in the train station before getting an evening train back to Aberdeen. Two sleepy boys were humming the tunes from the musical all the way home.

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Early on a Saturday morning, Mary Polly and I made our way up the still dark street in Edinburgh from our room at Smart City Hostels to Haggis Adventures, a ridiculously convenient distance of 417 feet.

We boarded a bus and headed for a part of Scotland that we had yet to see, Glencoe and Loch Ness.

The whole bus seemed sleepy as we drove out of Edinburgh, and as the sky went from dark gray to light gray, we listened to Nick, our driver and tour guide tell us stories about Scotland.

We stopped a couple of times on the way to Loch Ness, because it is about a 3.5 hour drive. My favorite stop was Glencoe. The word glen means “valley” in Scottish and the valleys we drove to get to Loch Ness were everything you would imagine Scotland to be, sweeping, green hills shrouded in mist.

I also loved the short visit to Inverlochy Castle, a ruin dating back to the 13th century.

Mary Polly and I almost wished we had the boys with us to see the old castle ruin. We definitely need to bring them back to play within these walls.

Driving through the Great Glen, Nick continued to entertain us with stories of William Wallace, Rob Roy, The Glencoe Massacre, the building of the Caledonian Canal and many other bits of history and folklore. Later Mary Polly told me that listening to our guide while driving through the Scottish countryside was the highlight of the tour. I totally concur! (She also appreciated being on a comfy bus with plenty of space, as opposed to being in squeezed into our little car with her brothers.) I have been meaning to learn more about the history of Scotland and I’ve even bought a book on the subject, but there is something different about hearing someone who is from here tell the stories of their country with conviction that brings history to life.

By the time we reached Loch Ness I was singing along to the tunes of some of the traditional Scottish songs Nick played for us in between stories.

We were each given a sack lunch upon our arrival at Fort Augustus, and then we had two hours to spend on our own. You could spend one hour on a boat ride that takes you out on the lake to look for the monster, which we opted to do (not included in the tour). The guide on the boat said that they say that the rock slide in the above photo is where the monster tried to climb out of the water.

Mary Polly and I both felt that the boat ride was actually the most “skippable” (is that a word?) part of the day. In thought, one comes to Loch Ness to “catch a glimpse of the monster,” and so you have to go out on a boat. But it seemed a bit silly to be sitting for an hour of our visit when we had such a long bus ride to and from Edinburgh already.

The views from the shoreline were just as beautiful, so we spent our other hour walking along the lakeshore. At the end of November, Fort Augustus was fairly empty, but in exchange for solitude you get a sharp chill in the air. We had our hats and mittens though so we walked all around Fort Augustus and peeked through the bushes to get a view of this old abbey, which is now a hotel.

Above are the locks of the Caledonian Canal that opened in 1822 in order to move boats through the Great Glen without having to go all the way around Scotland. There are five of these locks just in Fort Augustus. It would be fun to be there when boats were actually moving through these locks, as I imagine it would take a long time.

Back on the bus, we drove a different route to Edinburgh, so I suppose in the summer you can enjoy different views since it stays light for so much longer. The days are shorter in November of course, so the sun went down quickly and we rode home mostly in darkness.

But we were happy with our November tour, and thrilled that when we got back to Edinburgh, we still had time to visit the Christmas Market.

Many thanks to Smart City Hostels to Haggis Adventures and our wonderful guide, Nick for a great weekend out in Scotland! Mary Polly and I won our tour vouchers through a contest on Twitter. I’m always keeping my eyes and ears open for those kinds of fun opportunities to see something new!

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Snapshots of Edinburgh, Scotland

For Instagram Travel Thursday this week, I am sharing images of Edinburgh.

Mary Polly and I went to Scotland’s capital city a couple of weekends ago to go on a Haggis Tour to Loch Ness for a day. We stayed right off the Royal Mile with Smart City Hostels and spent most of our time on the tour. I’ll be sharing more next week about our fun mother-daughter time away together, but here are just a few images of our short time in what has to be one of the most beautiful cites in the world!

We loved staying right downtown. The last time I went to Edinburgh, our lodging was about a ten or fifteen minute bus ride from The Royal Mile, which was less expensive, but it was so much more convenient to be right in the middle of everything this time!

We arrived really late on the train Friday night, and were able to walk to the hostel in less than ten minutes from the train station.

The hostel bar was still serving food, so we had a felafel wrap, a beer and a milkshake to celebrate the start of our girl weekend!

And onion rings of course.

I’m pretty sure that the felafel wrap, at just over four pounds is the best deal there is to be had in Edinburgh. It was divine.

We had to be up early for our tour of the Highlands, and we were gone all day, but when we got back we headed straight to the Christmas Market.

The Christmas Market in Edinburgh is everything I had hoped!

Classic Christmas stands + Mulled Cider and Hot Rum Toddies + Ice Skating Rink, Ferris Wheel and Merry-Go-Round!

So much fun!

We were super hungry from our busy day of touring, so we ate our way through the market. We gobbled up waffles, crepes, bratwursts and fried cheese!

You might not think fried Camembert is one of the most amazing tasting foods ever, but you would be wrong!

The next day we went back through the market before catching our train, just to see it during the daytime.

And to have one last crepe of course!

Nutella + Bananas = YUM!

Before Mary Polly got up on Sunday morning, I went for a walk by myself, which is my very favorite way to see a city.

Another advantage to staying right in the middle of the city was being able to go on an early morning walk on The Royal Mile while my teenager was sleeping!

It was raining a little bit and it was barely light when I first went outside since the days are getting shorter here in Scotland.

But the rain made the cobblestones shine.

I love being in the streets before anyone else.

The castle was not open yet so the courtyard was empty. A rare sight.

I really cannot believe how gorgeous Edinburgh is, and I hope to visit many, many more times since it is only two and half hours from Aberdeen.

I’ll share more about our fun getaway next week, which was made possible by the fact that I am on Twitter like a troll looking for travel giveaways. We won our two night stay at Smart City Hostels and our Loch Ness Hunter Haggis Tour by answering a question on Twitter. Who says social media is a waste of time?

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Let me tell you about a little treasure hunt we went on to find a hidden letter in Edinburgh. 

Almost as soon as we arrived in Edinburgh a few weeks ago, Cole and Mary Polly were insistent that we find a place called the Jolly Judge.

While Taido seemed to understand their need to find this spot in the city, I remained completely oblivious until we were actually on the Royal Mile.

We had walked from our apartment and turned onto the top of the Royal Mile.  We were just beginning to take in the view of Edinburgh Castle, which until now, we had only glimpsed from afar, when Taido and the kids started to run in the opposite direction down the street.

Puzzled, Mother and I followed and barely caught up with them in time to see them turn down the alley (or close, as they are called here) underneath the sign for the Jolly Judge.

They were all down on the ground searching the wall of the close.

I see it! 

Here it is!

They were all shouting.  Taido pulled out pieces of folded up paper from the wall and when we opened them all up, to our delight, they were letters to our family.

A little note for each of us.

A girl from our hometown, named Ashley Jolly, had visited Scotland with her family in June, and though she knew we weren’t moving to Edinburgh, she figured we would get there eventually, so she wrote letters and hid them in a wall for us to find when we arrived.

Our home church collected letters and cards and memories into a book for us back in Arkansas, and she included a note in the collection that simply read,

Your letter is in the wall, near the Jolly Judge in Scotland.

You can’t believe how much fun this was to all of us!  We read her letters over and over and Instagrammed pictures of finding them.  I would have to say it was one of our highlights of our time in Edinburgh, and it was such a simple, fun idea.

It made me curious.  Have you ever left a letter hidden in a city for a future traveler?  Or have you ever found one?

We are all thinking now about how we might leave someone a letter like this some day!

Thanks Ashley!  We hope to see you on this side of the pond sometime soon! XOXO

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Last weekend, we took our first of what I feel will be many weekend trips to Edinburgh.  For the last several months, whenever I mentioned to someone that we were moving to Scotland, inevitably, I would hear something else wonderful about Edinburgh.

So off we went with a guidebook and suggestions.  We took the train from Aberdeen because we still hadn’t bought a car and because Edinburgh is wonderfully walkable.  We told the kids to pack light, because they would be carrying their own backpacks around the city.  After a rough beginning (Long Morning Walk to Train Station + Teenagers = Bad Idea), we had a great visit.  Here are some of our highlights!

Fun In Edinburgh For Kids

Edinburgh Castle

Of course.  The castle takes your breathe away from the moment you glimpse it. It’s the main attraction in Edinburgh, and everyone had a different favorite bit.

My mom and I loved seeing the Honours of Scotland (Crown Jewels).  The honours have a great history, and the story is told really well through the exhibition.

Ben and Simon love, love LOVED the demonstration of weapons in the Great Hall.  They also got to see how a real kilt is a large square of fabric, as well as how it is put on and its many uses.

Mary Polly liked seeing the prisons below the castle best.

Climbing Arthur’s Seat

Arthur’s Seat is a hill in the center of the city, about a mile east of the castle, that you can climb up for gorgeous views of the city. 

The boys were determined to climb up it as soon as we read about it.  They are all a bit obsessed with King Arthur at the moment, and in fact, Simon carried his sword all over Edinburgh.

High Tea 

While the boys climbed, the girls had High Tea, which was super fancy and OH SO yummy.  Actually we had lots of fancy tea and pastries in Edinburgh because of you know, all the walking.  Our favorite might have been Patisserie Valerie.

National Museum Of Scotland

This museum is so huge that you can only really take in part of it with kids, or even adults.  But the admission is free, so you can go back again and again. There was an exquisite sculpture display on for this season, but the highlight for younger folks is the impressive four floors of animal exhibits, many of which are extinct or endangered.

The gorgeous building alone is reason enough to visit this museum.

Camera Obscura

This place looked so gimmicky to me that Mother and I opted to have tea while Taido took the kids, but it turned out to be a huge amount of fun.  The camera obscura, which has been around for 150 years, projects images of the city onto a large mirror.  The rest of the building is filled with all different kinds of optical illusions, including a mirror maze that would have most certainly driven me mad.  But the kids were wild for it.

Scottish National Gallery

Only Mary Polly was in for seeing this gallery in its entirety with Mother and me, but Simon and Taido popped in for a bit of it and Simon later went back with pen and paper to draw his own rendition of Rodin’s Kiss.

The museum has an amazing collection, full of lots of wonderful Italian Renaissance art that I feel giddy to be so close to, as well as many great Scottish painters and scultptures. We’ll be back with our pencils for sure!

Princes Street Garden Park

After you’ve been to a castle, what could be more fun than playing on one?  This park in the shape of a castle was a great playing stop, and those who didn’t want to play were happy to lie in the grass and soak up the wonderful weather we had for our weekend in Edinburgh.

We stayed as long as we could in this park before it was time to catch the train back home.

Do you have a favorite bit about Edinburgh? I would love to put it on my list for our next trip!

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