Tuesday, May 22, 2012

A Weekend Trip to Edinburgh - Day 1

Ack, so I wanted to go to Edinburgh purely to see the pandas that had arrived in December 2011. But Miss Pinky wanted to go purely for the whiskey! So we ended up going to do both! ^_^

I was looking for a very, very cheap holiday package that would benefit both of our pockets, so in the end I ended up choosing a website called www.superbreak.com. They had the best deal! Two nights at Travelodge (in Eglington Crescent) and a train ticket for £96 per person! Wow! If I had booked this trip using easyJet, I don't think I would've got a better deal!!

Our train journey started from King's Cross Station. We wanted to get the 9.30 am train but unfortunately ALL the seats were reserved for that train. This is one of the disadvantages with using this promotional site as they don't reserve the seats for you. But the good thing is that you can choose any train time (within specific time periods of the day - read guidelines very carefully!) to go...

It was fortunate that we were able to get seats on the next train at 10.00 am!

And so we arrived in Edinburgh after 2.30 pm. It was cold! And it was raining, which we were both expecting! We took a taxi to the hotel in Eglinton Crescent because we couldn't find the way out! It's actually a short walk from the station (about 20 minutes) - unfortunately we didn't know that and there are a lot of road works at the moment... :(

A very wet Princes Street
We were both very hungry and ended up eating a pizza at Travelodge just to fill our stomachs.
The dining area / bar and pizza at the Travelodge 
As well as friendly staff, the room they gave us was great! One double and one single bed. They didn't have any twin rooms available at the time but that didn't matter as long as we had a room to stay in...
The Room

After doing a little unpacking Miss Pinky and I decided to go out and have a look around... It was a long walk and we ended up doing some shopping and walking in the cold wet rain.
Scottish Goodies! I wanted to buy cashmere!!
So much whiskey plus salesman in kilt! ^_^
If you do decide to stay around Haymarket, make sure you pass this Designer Cake Boutique!
Designer Cake Boutique
Finally dinner time. We decided to eat at the hotel because it was just convenient... I had the top two dishes (chicken goujons and steak & ale pie), the pie was humungous! Miss Pinky ate the bottom two dishes (chicken wings and red thai curry - it was extremely spicy apparently!).
Sorry for the dark pics - I forgot to the flash on! 
First night at this Travelodge was a little noisy than expected! I think there was a stag do or a Scottish football match coming up... A lot of doors opening and closing. A lot of men talking. And a noisy breakfast run... Only a few hours sleep (-__-)zzzzz