Edinburgh - A Long Weekend in the Scottish Capital

It has been a couple of weeks now since mine and Danny's little mini-holiday to Edinburgh... we had such a lovely time! The city is so beautiful, so many amazing buildings! The great thing about Edinburgh is that it is a really walkable city and there are lots of affordable decent hotels right in the city centre. Ours was a 10 minute walk from the train station and round the corner from Calton Hill.

The Royal Mile was crammed with delights, like the architecture of this wonderful building!

The First thing that we did after checking into our hotel was visit the Scott Monument. After dragging myself up the 287 steps to the top my legs were totally jellified even before the day had truly begun! But it was totally worth it, the views were amazing! It was deceptively high and the passageways got narrower the higher I climbed.


A cannon-eye view of the Scott Monument seen from Edinburgh Castle. We were thoroughly impressed with Edinburgh Castle, there's plenty to see, especially if you like a war/armourie museum or two!

Danny on the Royal Mile

Me having a little walk in the park with Edinburgh Castle in the background

We had a little walk around the botanical gardens. But unfortunately we didn't walk around the whole of the gardens, just one section, because my poor feet were all walked out!

Edinburgh Castle at night

Tempting Tattie

Danny outside the Scottish Parliament building

Holyrood Palace

Danny walking up the Craggs

I just loved all the little alleyways, steps, interesting buildings and history that lurked around every corner. I can highly recommend a trip to Edinburgh, the only problem was that I wanted the weekend to go on for a few more days!

Edinburgh Zoo - A Fantastic Day Out!

I had an absolutely wonderful weekend in Edinburgh with the boyf. On our second day in the beautiful city we visited Edinburgh zoo. It was fantastic! One of the best zoos I have visited. Almost every animal was happy and visible in it's enclosure. Some animals, like leopards and bears, are really difficult to spot in some zoos (like London zoo!) but in Edinburgh zoo they were in full view. I highly recommend a visit to the zoo if you are in the city. We managed to get the reduced, book-in-advance, winter special tickets for a tenner each and we spent well over 4 and a half hours there! (in contrast to Dynamic Earth, that we spent a tenner on and spent a grand total of an hour and a half!). I made good use of my camera and here are some of my favourite photos from our little day trip...

I couldn't leave these little fellas out! The natural British wildlife was invading the Siberian Musk Deer enclosure and I couldn't resist a little snap of the squirrels :)

The Leopard is one of the animals I have always failed to spot in other zoos, I didn't quite get a perfect shot, but to see it at all was a bonus... and what a magnificent cat!

The Zebra and Kudu enclosure was great, really huge and had a little viewing point in the middle of it. I caught this little zebra having a drink at the water hole.

How adorable is this little guy!

It's the mating season for the penguins and this little guy spent absolutely ages painstakingly picking up pebbles in his beak and gradually filling up the nest for his potential lady :)

This amazing Sea Eagle was just hanging out right at the front of it's enclosure posing for a photo!

Possibly the snooziest koala ever!

Squirrel monkeys

The sun bear. Another animals that I have never seen in captivity, this guy was scavaging around his enclosure looking for hidden food.

The lemur walk was great too. We timed it just right when everyone was at the penguin parade and managed to have the whole place to ourselves, aside from the lemurs of course! I caught this lemur mid-leap from the rock to the log.

This lemur had a little sniff of my boots! It's so amazing to get up close to these lovely creatures. My trip to Edinburgh zoo definitely enhanced my stay in the gorgeous Scottish city!