Scotland: How I planned the trip

Market Street, Edinburgh

How did I even decide on Edinburgh?

Well, it was because of the Queen’s funeral, funny enough. We were watching the procession to St. Giles on TV (My parents and I) and we all thought, wow, that’s a pretty city! And we are Scottish, on my mother’s side. Dad also said that the city looked very “doable” for a first European visit, and Edinburgh is less expensive than London (true story).

So that’s how Edinburgh was selected.

The first thing I had to figure out was when to go to Edinburgh.

I knew I didn’t want to go in August—that’s festival season, and prices are insane, and the city is also insanely crowed. No, thank you. I knew I didn’t want to go in the winter or late fall, because it would be quite dark (remember how far north Edinburgh is—think Moscow, Copenhagen, southern Sweden, etc.). That left spring and early and late summer. September seemed liked a good time to me, and it was a good time. It wasn’t really crowded, prices were reasonable, and we could get around the city without being mobbed by tourists. The weather was also amazing—quite unusually, according to locals!—but the average temperatures are around the low to mid 60s, which is comfortable for me, personally. (It was in the low 70s for most of our trip.)

As I wrote in my accessibility post, choosing a hotel required two things: elevators and air conditioning. I knew I wanted to be on the Royal Mile, but not in a chain hotel (ie, a Hilton) if possible. The Scotsman Hotel checked all the boxes. If you want to book, book direct on their website, where they have lots of deals and offers! We stayed in a City View Feature Suite. We also added breakfast to our bill and had breakfast at the hotel every day. (They are not paying me to say any of this, btw.)

The reason for the suite? One, I had heard about the smallness of European hotel rooms. Two, I love Amilia and she loves me, but extra space is always good. This room was much bigger than we anticipated!

City view, check.

Flight:

There are no direct flights to Edinburgh from Columbus, so I narrowed it down to two carriers that I’ve flown and like—Delta and United. Delta won, because they routed us through Boston (which I like better than the NYC airports that United was going to use), and it was much cheaper for some reason, even in Delta Comfort (which is what we booked). With Delta Comfort you get more legroom, more food, and a free checked bag. Our flight was from Columbus to Boston to Edinburgh Airport (EDI), and the same on the way back. There were also a variety of times to choose from, which was nice.

Both the flight and the room were refundable. That was important to us! Yes, this meant we paid more, but having the peace of mind that the refundable prices gave us was worth it.

Where to go, what to see:

I used the Visit Scotland site extensively. Just poking around will give you a bunch of ideas of where to go, what to see, and what to eat. There are only a few things I’m not allowed to eat, and neither of us had food allergies or intolerances, which made our food planning easy. Both of us like tea, so afternoon teas were very often our lunches, because, as you saw, you get a lot of food in an afternoon tea!

Food, glorious food.

Most people eat dinner later in Edinburgh, but some places offered early deals, like Howie’s on Victoria Street.

I made reservations via Open Table before we left. I really don’t like hemming and hawing around food choices, and being diabetic I know that I have to eat at certain times or the body gets CRANKY. So reservations were really helpful. It was also really easy to cancel if needed (which we did the first night, since I was so tired!)

Places where we ate:

Howie’s Victoria Street

Ensign Ewart Pub on the Royal Mile

The Grand Cafe, Scotsman Hotel (afternoon tea and lunch)

Mowgli Edinburgh

Eteaket Tea Room

Cafe at the Palace (of Holyroodhouse)

Mimi’s Bakehouse (don’t take reservations but we popped in several times for drinks and snacks)

Ivy on the Square

Badger and Co.

The Scran and Scallie

Royal Deck Tearoom, Britannia (they don’t take reservations so if you want to eat there, head there first when you get on the yacht!)

Some afternoon teas require pre-booking: the Grand Cafe, the Cafe at the Palace, and Eteaket all needed to be pre-booked (and in the case of the Grand Cafe, pre-paid).

Booking Attractions:

We did this months out, so that we one, saved money, and two, had things booked and pre-paid, so we could spread out the cost of the trip. Britannia, Edinburgh Castle, and the Palace of Holyroodhouse were pre-booked. The National Gallery, and all the National Museums, are free in Scotland and don’t require any advance booking.

Shopping:

Edinburgh is famous for its bookstores, so I made a list of stores for us to check out. We only ended up visiting two—Waterstones and Golden Hare Books. I also knew I wanted to visit at least one yarn shop, which was Ginger Twist Studio. If you like to shop, Edinburgh will not disappoint you.

Making it all work:

On the itinerary, there was generally what I called a big “rock” every day—one “big” thing we were doing, along with any meal reservations. This worked well and gave us a lot of free time; we didn’t feel like we were being rushed around to get to places or do things, but ensured we saw and did everything we wanted. The only things that changed from the itinerary were cancelling dinner the first night, and having to scramble for dinner on Sunday night because the hotel cafe was booked (I got room service and Amilia went out to find some food).

Scotland: Accessibility

Our hotel lobby—there is an elevator to the left of this photo, as well as one a few steps away.

When I was planning the trip (and more on this tomorrow), one of the things I realized quickly was that not all hotels in Scotland have elevators. I was expecting to have to look for a place with air conditioning, but not elevators

There is no Americans with Disabilities Act equivalent in the UK. Many historic buildings (you’ll see this as “Grade 1” or “Grade 2” on websites) can’t be adapted to have elevators.

There was no way I was booking a hotel without an elevator.

The Scotsman Hotel, where we stayed, did have an elevator (two!) and air conditioning. It checked all our boxes in terms of accessibility.

(Air conditioning was necessary because one of the things that can stress out blood glucose is temperature changes. Since it ended up being unseasonably warm, and since most buildings in Edinburgh do not have air conditioning, it was very nice to get back to the room and cool down a bit.)

The elevators did tend to be smaller than American elevators, so if you use a wheelchair, you’ll want to call and check elevator dimensions. But if you use a walker, cane, crutches, etc., I think you’ll be fine.

Restaurants/Stores/Attractions

Most websites will say if they are accessible—either a lift, a ramp, or something they can bring out (like a portable ramp.) Some places are not accessible, and they may or may not say that. (Eteaket’s website, for example, doesn’t note that this is how you enter the tea room.)

The entrance to Eteaket is down this small flight of stairs. The website does not note this.

Some places might have no stairs, but it’s a tiny entrance—Ginger Twist Yarns was that way. (The entire shop is tiny!)

As I noted in the Edinburgh Castle entry, you may or may not have access to the mobility vehicle at the castle. Decide if the risk of not having it is worth pre-booking tickets, or if you just want to take your chances and visit without reserved tickets.

At the Palace of Holyroodhouse, there is the secret elevator, and it’s easily accessible by asking a staff member to escort you there. I’m guessing that to get out of the castle you’d also take this elevator back down—I took another staircase out.

Britannia is highly accessible. There is an elevator (two, in fact). You can ride like the Queen Mother!

There are audio guides at Britannia and the Palace of Holyroodhouse. At the Palace of Holyroodhouse, there are ones with British Sign Language (BSL) interpretation. Here are all of Britannia’s accessibility notes—they even have ASL guides in addition to the BSL ones! I did not know that! They also include dimensions which I think is really helpful.

The National Gallery had elevators, which was very helpful. Here’s the accessibility info for all the National Galleries of Scotland (the National Gallery, Portrait Gallery, and Modern One and Two.)

And some things are just flat out not accessible, like Camera Obscura (A very popular tourist attraction). There’s no elevator, and it’s not wheelchair accessible.

Cabs:

I noticed that many of the City Cabs we used had a telecoil function—fabulous! I didn’t have to use it because I was with Amilia, but I loved that. I’m not sure what there is in terms of wheelchair accessible cabs—their website says all cabs are wheelchair accessible, but I didn’t actually have to test this.

One of the reasons we took so many cabs is that, while things seem close on the map, the topography of Edinburgh is very hilly. If you’ve been to Pittsburgh, imagine Pittsburgh on steroids, and you’re close. I had good shoes, so when we did walk, my muscles didn’t complain and I never felt sore or painful, foot or leg wise, when I was in Scotland (win!). But I also know my own limitations and so taxis were the way to go, most of the time. Yes, we had a cabby comment on this: “Oh, you can just walk this!” I do not care. Take my money, cabby.

(For example, to get to the National Gallery, which was quite close to our hotel, one would have to walk up Market Street, which becomes rather steep, and then down it to reach the National Gallery’s main entrance—then repeat this, on the way back. Not a far walk, but a demanding one.)

Airport:

Edinburgh Airport is small. It’s different than American airports in that it’s not quite as “direct”—you don’t walk in and see the check in desks, you don’t walk out and see a taxi stand right away. But there are lots of places to sit, there is a telecoil system in the airport, and they even have these lovely things….

These are staffed—so helpful—and have comfortable chairs! They are also right by the gates so it’s not like you’d have to book it to get to your gate when it was your turn to board. This is such a good idea!

If you have other questions about accessibility, please drop them in the comments, and I’ll do my best to answer them! I might do a round up post of all the places we visited with links to their accessibility pages, if people would find that helpful. Let me know!

Scotland Day 7--Going for broke at Mimi's, arancini, and can everything I bought fit in my suitcase?

Edinburgh is chock full of all these little nooks and crannies.

It was….the last full day in Scotland.

Cue the tears.

Amilia had some shopping she wanted to accomplish, and I wanted one more spin at Mimi’s for some serious sketching.

I decided that I was going to have the September specials….

A peppermint “aero” bar—Aero being, I think, like our crunch bars? It was really good.

Cookies and Cream hot chocolate!

Mimi’s had such a variety of things that it really made me wish coffee shops here provided this sort of spread—brunch, sandwiches, but also a variety of bakes that weren’t just brownies and scones. I’d take fewer cookies and more tray bake variety of things! But that’s probably just me. (Mimi, if you’re reading this, please give us a cookbook! PLEASE!)

At our hotel—public art!

I loved these flowers by the hotel’s Market Street door.

A look at the steps.

(There is a lot of graffiti in Edinburgh, which was a little bit dismaying, especially on things that are public art displays or otherwise tourist-y location spots.)

Lunch was our last (sob) afternoon tea, this time at the Grand Cafe in our hotel.

Allllll the velvet

My first Battenberg cake!

Here I had the Isle of Harris Gin tea, which was actually really good! I would really recommend not letting the tea continue to steep, though, because by the end of the pot, it was very “gin” tasting in an overwhelming way.

Dinner that night was at The Ivy on the Square, but before that, I began packing. Would everything fit in my suitcase?

Answer: YES

For our last meal, we wanted to go out with a bang, so to speak, so I chose the Ivy.

I decided to introduce Amilia to the delights of arancini….

Arancini are little balls of leftover risotto that have been fried. Leftover risotto is one of the many delights of the Italian kitchen, but I’m guessing the Ivy made fresh risotto and let it chill or something instead of using old risotto. :) These had truffle in them which gave them an extra touch of loveliness.

For my entree I chose a salmon with an Asian kick and it was delicious. One of the things that I noticed when dining in Edinburgh was that sides can be ordered separately—in this case I ordered a small bowl of jasmine rice. Portions weren’t huge anywhere we went but they weren’t tiny, either. They were what I’d call reasonable portions.

Sorbet for dessert? Yes!

Mmmmmm dessert. The Ivy was on our list of Afternoon Tea places to try but we never got there for tea, so I’m glad we got there for dinner!

A note on the tea: Infusions are what we’d call “herbal tea” in the States. Infusions is actually the correct term since there’s no tea in herbal tea (as in, tea leaves).

And then….the meal was over.

And it was time to go back to the hotel and pack up to go home.

View from our room of the Balmoral Hotel, where JK Rowling finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.