UK Itinerary 2018: Day 4 - Around Edinburgh

Today was supposed to be a free and easy day. We thought that we can just wing it and walk from Princes Street to Edinburgh Castle, but of course, that did not go as planned.

It was already an uphill climb to go from Princes Street to Royal Mile, let alone to go Edinburgh Castle, and if you're with an elderly, the lone choice you got is to take cab or take the day tour. So we waited patiently for the offices of the Hop On Hop Off buses to open. (The offices only open at 9AM.

There are no seats around the area so if the offices aren't open, so you'll just hang around the nearby cafe or take a photo at Cockburn Street (where they filmed a scene in Avengers: Infinity War).
                                            


or hang around Waverley Mall...( the mall does not open till probably 10ish or 11).

The bathroom signs. You need to pay .30GBP to enter. 

and Space Invaders!

or walk around Princes Street Garden..



Once we got our tickets (to the HoHo bus and Edinburgh Castle) from the Bus ticket office, we proceeded to board bus and go to  Edinburgh Castle.
Tip: You can buy the ride all you can bus. The red bus is the last bus that you can ride for the day to get a tour of the city. The last trip was 18.00. It takes roughly 1hr to do one iteration. Also, one thing about the Hoho bus is that they come at interval. You're lucky if there are passing buses otherwise, it'll be 20-45 minutes wait at the bus stop.


Now, the HoHo Bus will not let you alight in front of the castle. It will make a stop at a bus stop in front of The Hub.


It was  another 10 -15minutes walk to the Edinburgh Castle. Having bought the fast track ticket beforehand, we just went through the whole thing like a breeze ( No need to queue to buy tickets).





At least allot 3 hours to go around Edinburgh Castle, it's quite huge, and probably get an audio guide (3GBP).

After the tour at Edinburgh Castle, we went to some of Edinburgh's notable photo-stops. Starting with ...

The Hub
The Hub
 St Giles Cathedral


We went back to Royal Mile to have lunch.

Somewhere in Royal Mile

Our next stop after eating was Greyfriar Kirkyard, we noticed that it was just a few minutes walk so we decided to walk around the neighborhood. On our way, we spotted the elephant house , where JK Rowling wrote the drafts to her first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.


 After walking, we saw Greyfriars Bobby and the statue of Bobby, Scotland's version of Hachiko.


 Then it was off to Greyfriars Kirkyard





We almost wanted to take a bus to go National Museum, when we noticed that it was actually nearby. It was just near Elephant House. So we went back near Elephant House, head south till the corner and crossed the street.








At around 4.30PM, we decided to check Palace of Holyroodhouse, the Queen's residence when she's in Scotland.






The last entry to the house was at 5PM, but since we'd had enough of Palaces,we just opted for a photo-op outside the palace grounds.

It was also near The Scottish Parliament
and Holyroodhouse Park


 Then it was another round in the HoHo bus before calling it a day...  The waiting time for the Hoho bus was so long that we weren't able to alight at Royal Mile for dinner/shopping in time. 


So we just had our dinner at Princes Street before we went to stroll around the neighborhood.

We decided to go The Mound and take sunset pictures (this was at 9.30PM)





 and National Gallery of Scotland was just nearby ...


and go back  to Princes Street ..

and a nice view of sunset to cap the day..



and that's Day 4!

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