July 15-30, 2023
The Big 2023 Holiday! Dan and I planned early in the year that THIS was the year to ride the motorcycles to Norway! The work calendar dictated that this would be in July and I started to look into the details. After a short delay and then some discussion, it was decided that two weeks would not be adequate to ride there and still have time to see the country. Ok, we’d save Norway for another time. But now the summer was starting to heat up and we needed another destination. The “weather map blue” of the Pyrenees stood out to us and I began planning a ride there, sticking to the eastern end of the mountain range and looking into interesting places to stay and things to do.
While we generally don’t make any reservations ahead of time on our motorcycle trips, it was the middle of summer and “the (popular) south of France”, so I made the effort to get reservations for each night we’d be gone. It was a tedious task but I finally did it! The full two weeks meticulously planned out: daily riding times and distances, good roads, nice places to stay, interesting towns to explore, and a variety of adventures to experience throughout! I put the finishing touches on the trip twelve days before we were to leave. The next night Dan came home limping and informed me that he hurt his knee and would not be able to ride a motorcycle.
Well.
To say that this put a “kink in our plans” would be an understatement. But there was no getting around it: we’d have to cancel this trip and do something else. Fortunately I was able to cancel all but one hotel and we set about pondering what else we could do. “Not going” was not an option, as our cat sitters had been booked months ago and were going to arrive on the 15th. What kind of holiday could we plan that was 1) for two weeks, 2) in a relatively cool region, 3) wasn’t too strenuous, and 4) was interesting?
Scotland! More specifically, Edinburgh. This ticked all of the boxes. And the fact that we’d been to the city before (and loved it) just meant that there was no pressure to go out and see it all. We could go and just “chill”. So we booked flights and a hotel and prepared for a most last-minute holiday.
| 15th - Arrival | 16th - Dean Village | 17th - Portabello Beach | 18th - Union Canal | 19th - Baird & Blackford |
| 20th - Mercat Cross | 21st - Cramond Beach | 22nd - Botanical Gardens | 23rd - Stirling | 24th - Scottish Museum |
| 25th - Duddingston | 26th - Pentland Hills | 27th - Glasgow | 28th - Gardens | 29th - Rugby game |
15th – Saturday
The flight out of Basel was at o’dark thirty that Saturday morning, with an uneventful flight to Edinburgh. The tram connection to the city was smooth and it was a short walk to the hotel I had booked in Fountainbridge. The staff at “ALTIDO at VITA” was kind enough to let us drop our bags off until the afternoon check in, meaning that we could start our holiday right away.
Unknown to me at the time of booking, the Altido Vita is not your average hotel. Nine months of the year, the rooms are rented by university students, and only during the quieter summer months are those rooms rented as hotel rooms. This turned out to work perfectly for us: we had a nice studio room, breakfast was included, there was a gym on site, and there were even laundry machines to use. All of this, plus a very central location, meant that we had one “home base” during our stay. We could settle in.
The other side of the coin on this situation was that the people running reception and the breakfast area were new and hadn’t found their stride yet. The check in was chaotic, and the breakfast area was in complete disarray. But everyone was very nice and apologetic and – eventually – things got smoothed out.
Now that I’ve written so much of an introduction to this holiday. I think that I won’t say so much about the days, but let the pictures speak for themselves. Naturally I’ll provide context and links and any other interesting tidbits of information!
The scourge of AirBnBs!
Everyone wants to be famous
We strolled around the city, passing by the usual tourist sites and poking our heads into previously-unseen corners. One of them was the cemetery at the west end of Princess Gardens, St Cuthbert’s Kirkyard. The tombstones were varied, but all held a semblance of beauty.
I love it when the occupation is included on the stone
Eventually it was time to go and get the key to our room and settle our things. As we would be here for two weeks, I unpacked completely and we took inventory of our room: full bathroom, small kitchen, a side desk and a comfy bed. It would be a comfortable place to stay.
Our hotel room
Not a bad view
After a short break we went back out for some fresh air. The weather was fantastic.
Lunch at The Royale Dick, once the Small Animal Hospital of the Dick Vet School
Poutine was on the menu, so we had to try it; we gave it 7/10
Looking across to Arthur’s Seat from The Meadows
Zoom in on the people at the top of the Seat!
