Our Day in Edinburgh’s Old Town

Another lovely, sunny day here in Edinburgh! We spent most of the day walking the Royal Mile which is the main road in “old town” that leads up to Edinburgh Castle. The road is line with many shops where we did some browsing and souvenir shopping. One common theme among the souvenirs here is highland cows, which are slightly smaller and very hairy. We hope to see some real ones later on in our trip as they are common around Isle of Skye, however for now some of the art and souvenirs are really cute! I picked up a cute tote bag as one of my souvenirs today.

Our one scheduled tour of the day was of Edinburgh Castle. We had seen it from a distance yesterday, but you don’t realize the true size of it until you’re up close and walking around inside the buildings and courtyards. Because the castle has been built in phases over many 100’s of years, it is not know when construction first stated. However they do know the oldest surviving building in the castle is St Margaret’s Chapel which was built around 1130. There was also a sweet little area that was a graveyard and memorial for some of the dogs that have lived in the castle over the years.

After our tour of the castle we walked over to Greyfriars Kirkyard to see a statue and memorial for another dog known as Greyfriar’s Bobby. The story of Greyfriars Bobby is after his owner died in 1858, Bobby lived by his owners grave until he died in 1872. There is both a newer statue inside the graveyard and the original statue from 1873 on the street corner. A tradition started that said that rubbing the nose would bring good luck, so you will see in the picture that his nose is a different color than the rest of the statue.

We headed back to the hotel for a break before dinner at an Italian restaurant and enjoying the sunset views as we walked back home for the night.