Elegant Edinburgh (2)

To read before: Part 1

Day 3 (15 December 2014)

One thing I really wanted to do in Edinburgh was: hiking! Yes, there’s a hill in the middle of city named Arthur’s Seat, where you can see all the city view from this top. It wasn’t really a difficult route, just take around 2-3 hours to go upside down. However, during my 4 days stay I didn’t get a chance to hike this hill 🙁 A bit disappointed but I promise will go back here again. I hope I can re-visit Edinburgh next summer to do these things: reach Arthur’s Seat and watching Royal Military Tattoo at Edinburgh’s Castle!

Eventhough didn’t manage to hike Arthur’s Seat, we did reach one of Edinburgh’s highest point: Calton Hill. It wasn’t even actually a real hill, just a fancy park that located in higher place. But from there, you can enjoy a very very dramatic scenery of Edinburgh. It was sooooo pretty!

 

We got new friend accompanied us here, Mas Salam, an Indonesian student at University of Edinburgh. He became a ‘tour guide’ for our trip to Calton Hill and brought us to some recommended food place at Edinburgh Old Town. It was always nice to have ‘local people’ to show you some hidden gems of the city you travel to 🙂

 

 

 

Calton Hill is definitely a must-see tourism object at Edinburgh. Eventhough the wind at the top was unbelievably strong and freezing, the splendid view was really worth it! It’s also a perfect place for people who want to enjoy Edinburgh’s top scenery without heavy-hiking (eventhough still, I want to hike Arthur’s Seat). Oh, and the good news is, it’s free 🙂

At the afternoon Mas Salam brought us to Yocoko Noodle Bar, a small Japanese restaurant in Old Town which is incredibly tasty (and not costly). After having the late lunch, we continued our walk to University of Edinburgh. It’s one of the oldest University in Scotland (not to be confused with St Andrews University, the Prince William almamater) and currently rank World’s Best 20 Universities.

At the evening, after accompanying Sharon went back to Manchester at Waverley station, Lely and I again visited Princes Street Chrismast Market. For me I went here three-times in a row and never get bored! We decided to enjoy the night view by taking a ride on “Edinburgh’s Eye”. Perfect scenery from above 🙂

One thing I admire about Edinburgh is its city design. It seems like this city actually had a wavy-bumpy surface formed by natural hilly contours. Whoever the city designer was, he succesfully changed the wavy contours to be exceptional architectural masterpiece. You can feel it especially when walking around the city center. The roads were upside-down, but somehow the bridge, the buildings, the castles, the hills, everything was just placed accordingly to create breath-taking view anywhere you look. And still you have that ancient buildings which are well-preserved, make it feels like walking through Medieval Ages anywhere you go. See? Great combination of nature and history. It’s like getting two of my favorite things in the present of Edinburgh 🙂

Well, the story hasn’t yet to be ended!

Places Visited & Budget Spent

Calton Hill

Entrance ticket = free

Edinburgh’s Old Town

Well it’s just streets with old buildings, gift shops, and nice restaurants, so it’s free! Yet so pretty!

Princes Street Christmas Market

Edinburgh’s Eye = £6 (student’s concession)

Food

Yokoco’s stir-fried duck = almost £5

Yokoco’s fried rice = £2.65

It came with big portion so I shared both of the meals with my friend so we just pay half each 🙂

To be continued in Part 3.