## Notes from a trip in December, 2023 My girlfriend *very* kindly took me on a trip to Edinburgh for my birthday. I'm not a huge traveller, but it's one of the few cities that I've always wanted to visit. Here are some notes on it: - Generally speaking the Scots I encountered were either very friendly or very gruff. - Considering it was Christmas it felt less 'Christmas-y' than I was expecting. There was a Christmas market and *some* lights dotted about. But generally speaking I think both the city and the businesses could have decorated it better. - It's pretty small – does't feel like a vast metropolis like London. This makes me more walkable and you can see lots of it in a day or two. - Scotland is obviously more north than where I live in the south of England, so you expect the weather to be colder. And it was a tad. But somehow it felt really cold. I often struggled to warm up, despite my many layers. - There was less pubs than I was expecting. Don't get me wrong, there's plenty, but less than I imagined. - The main boulevards are very wide roads. This was a surprise. I thought all the roads would be reasonably tight. Though obviously away from the main veins of the city there's narrower roads. - I really liked [[The Witchery by the Castle]] restaurant. Expensive, but worth it for the interior alone. - For me the worst part of my time there was just the busyness. I came at Christmas so it's going to be pretty jammed but not to the degree it was. And I don't really mean the footpaths or even the attractions. They're busy, but not insanely so. It's more the restaurants and pubs. It felt like there simply wasn't enough of them. Me and my girlfriend really struggled to get reservations for both lunches and dinners. And I'm not talking about the super trendy or popular places. Even just some bog standard Mexican places and pubs. You had to book many days in advanced. Maybe that's obvious to others, but it wasn't to me. It put a slight dampner on the trip as I was constantly worried about what and where we'd be eating. Most eating houses did allow walk-ins. But even then there was often a long wait or they were fully booked. So as a result we spent a lot of time walking around in the rain of an evening looking for food, which wasn't ideal.