Edinburgh. May 23

WARNING – This is a long post!

Today was Saturday, and it was stunningly beautiful. We left the house, but didn’t even get out of Grassmarket for over an hour. Walking through the square, we came to the Saturday produce market and were very pleased, as we planned to have a picnic later on. We sampled cheese, olives and cured meats, and chose truffle pecorino, speck and chilli olives. Having been asked by the cheese and meat man to buy him some bread, we got ourselves a loaf too and picked up some strawberries on our way out. After dropping off the produce back home we passed by Mary’s again and suddenly found ourselves with milkshakes made with her homemade ice cream.

Grassmarket

V. good. V. appropriate. V. us

Ready for the food

Is there a castle behind me?

Fave ever

Peanut butter & choc and salted caramel

Finally getting out of Grassmarket we headed into town and into the park that sits between the station and the National Art Gallery. In the park is a huge monument dedicated to the author Sir Walter Scott, which we climbed all 287 steps of! After enjoying the view we squeezed our way back down and walked to Carlton Hill. On the hill is a large, part finished Romanesque structure, which, according to Lauren (Elise’s sister), had been built in the time when the people saw themselves to be as great as the Romans, but in building this to prove it, ran out of funds and called it a monument.
As the all the other people on the hill were doing, we decided to climb up onto the monument to get greater views on the city and Arthurs Seat. This turned out to be a bit of a feat, especially for one Ashleigh Kropp, who isn’t so comfortable with climbing up things. Once we managed to both get up, we had a lovely time sitting in the sun, however, getting down took someone a little while to build herself up to. This was all very entertaining for Elise, but not so much for Ash.

#hiking

Scott monument 

Calton Hill

#likeapro #you'redoingitwrong

Favre returns 

Long live Favre

Arthur's seat

At the top finally

#squishy #canigodownnow?

Monument on Calton hill

Pinching baby Arthur

Got up like a pro

Spot the Elise

Found her

#struggletown 

But muuuuuuummmmm

SHE'S UP IT HAPPENED

Trying not to fall

King of monument

Nope, not coming down

Finally on safe ground we headed to Dean Village by Lauren’s suggestion. As she described, it was a beautiful part of the city, where suddenly, after walking down one lane, you find yourself in the countryside! Or at least that’s how it felt. We took some steps down to the river Leith Water and followed it along past singing birds and old stone bridges. Eventually we reached the river entrance of The Scottish Galleries of Modern Art, Modern One. We both went into Modern One and saw some great art, and when back outside enjoyed the two outdoors works. One was a the neon sign by artist Nathan Coley reading ‘Everything is going to be alright’, which Elise was very excited to see.  The other was ‘Landform’ by Charles Jencks, a large garden/land work that you could walk in and around.
After having a good wander around, Ash took a seat in the shade in the grounds and Elise crossed the road to check out Modern 2, where she enjoyed the Sculpture lawn the best.
We wandered back along the river and back to the apartment to prepare our picnic for Arthur’s Seat. We climbed up the hill and set up our picnic with a view, eating all our market goods from the morning. It was a super view and were only able to make ourselves walk back down because we had plans for the evening.
EUROVISION.

Modern 1

Modern 2

Climbing Arthur's Seat

Tasties

We walked to a beer garden nearby and climbed the stairs to a room full of televisions and couches with people fixed to the screens. We had unfortunately missed our own Guy Sebastian, however, there was an excited Scotsman representing Australia to the max, who was pleased to tell us Guy did ‘Ohhh, so good mate!’. After celebrating the winner, we decided to walk down to a place in the city centre where the final scene of ‘Sunshine on Leith’ was filmed, and played some of the songs by The Proclaimers to feel the feels, which lead to a nice hour or so of meeting the locals.
Finally we headed home through the lovely streets of Edinburgh to get some sleep for the next adventure!

Love A&E