What’s goin’ on
We often take holidays at Easter. This year was no exception. I was supposed to be taking younger child to Paris this year, but that didn’t come to fruition. So instead we went for a weekend in Edinburgh. I spent this first day in the New Town.
When reading these posts you may have to excuse me if I wander off into nostalgia. In the early 1990’s I was working at the oil refinery in Grangemouth. I was part of a large software build / deployment project. There was a team of dozens engaged in that project for quite some period of time.
Those of us who originated in England formed a bit of an ex-pat community in Edinburgh. At the time I was proverbially young, free and single, so you can imagine that when surrounded by lots of work colleagues who were in a similar position our minds were not always strictly devoted to our work.
Back at the plot, we planned a six-day trip, but two of those were spent in the car. Edinburgh is seven hours drive from home. That left us with four full days of Edinburgh-ness.
Younger child bought a friend (at my invitation) so that they could enjoy each other’s company visiting galleries, going shopping and buying books. That would leave me most of the time to geocaching. Obviously I’d never done that before except for a very quick night out while on a business trip back in 2019. It’s entertaining to go geocaching in a place you’ve lived in before. It makes you go to loads of places you’ve never been before – little highlights that I wasn’t interested in back in the day, but which as a slightly older person, I was happy to linger in.
Let the Fun Begin
Well, technically it began yesterday, I guess, but that was a whole day spent in the car, so I’m not going to talk about it. Anyway, today was the first day of the actual holidaying. My plan was to mooch around the New Town finding as many geocaches as I could. The kids had decided they were going shopping. They had money, so I was happy to leave them to it.
We were staying at a Premier Inn on York Place, at the west end of the New Town. I picked that mainly because it was reasonably close to a secure covered car park. None of the hotels in central Edinburgh have their own car park and I like a nice secure one. So I was parked in the Q-Park OMNI. It’s underground and has entrance doors that require a parking ticket. Plus it has security cameras inside.
In the Morning
I hadn’t pre-paid for breakfast. I’d intended we try a few different places. As Edinburgh is a capital city, it has a wealth of options. On this first morning though, we just went for the Premier Inn Full Monty. It’s always a good start to a day.
By the way, as a side-note for this whole holiday, you will have to forgive me if I drift off into nostalgia for times passed. In 1990 through to 1992 I lived in the middle of Edinburgh. Whilst I’d made a couple of flying visits since then, I had forgotten much of it. What I found, and maybe it’s a function of being older or that my eyes have changed, but everything seemed and felt smaller than I remembered. But at various points I am sure I will wander off topic a bit. Well, even more than I normally do.
The East End
In the whole time I lived in Edinburgh I don’t remember ever going up Calton Hill at the east end of Princes Street. That clearly was a situation that needed to be addressed. So for my first stretch of geocaching I split from the kids on St Andrew Square and walked down to the Scott Monument. From there I turned east along Princes Street. It was a particularly indirect route towards Calton Hill though.
After a few caches at the Scott Monument I then got very literally sidetracked with a set of labs in Waverley Station.
Back on Princes Street I continued eastwards, picking up more caches at practically ever building I walked by. I don’t ever remember walking further out than the North Bridge either, when I lived in town. I passed the old Scottish Government building, the somewhat dilapidated Old Royal High School and the Burns Monument. It was a nice warm spring day and the light was great. From this part of the road there’s a fantastic view across to Arthur’s Seat and down onto Holyrood Palace and the new Scottish Parliament building. I was ticking off the tourist sites pretty quickly, albeit from a distance.
Calton Hill
Calton Hill sits above the east end of Princes Street and commands a fine view all around the city and across the river to Fife. The hilltop is covered in monuments and an observatory. I’m not going to describe those though, because they’re all on the wikipedia page. But there’s a bit of a confusion of things on top of the hill which you can’t really see from street level. As it was a Friday and a Bank Holiday at the start of Easter, it was really busy up there too, which is just as well, because on reading the wikipedia page I just discovered that the hilltop has a bit of a reputation.
But anyway, I found pretty much all of the geocaches up there except for one stage of a multi (which I guessed, correctly, and found later). It had ticked round to lunchtime and while I was up there I received a call from Daughterus Minimus. So I agreed I’d go meet them back at the Scott Monument and find somewhere for lunch.
A Bit of a Break
We wandered back eastwards again looking for somewhere to get lunch. We spotted the Society Bar and Kitchen on the corner of Leith Street, Waterloo Place and Princes Street. It was busy but they said they could seat us in 30 minutes or so. We ummmmmed and ahhhhhed a bit and then talked them up to 40 minutes, which would give us time to dash back to the hotel and drop off the very many shopping bags that the kids had acquired during the morning. They’d obviously been busy. Lunch was “well nice”, as they say in the vernacular.
Moving On
It clearly wasn’t acceptable for me to stop caching just yet, so I wandered off in a westerly direction to go visit the far end of Princes Street Gardens and around the back of the castle. I did this by wandering through the heart of the New Town, along Thistle Street and George Street for a while before cutting through to Rose Street and Charlotte Square before arriving at the old Caledonian Hotel.
That was a bit of nostalgia right there. Rose Street, in particular, was a favourite haunt when I lived in the city because of it’s mix of excellent restaurants and small boutique shops. Oh, and bars. There’s a few of those, and in the two years I lived there, I became fairly familiar with a few of them.
I took the opportunity while I was on Rose Street to check out a couple of restaurants. It was Easter weekend so we weren’t 100% sure who would be open and when. That was quickly fixed by asking at a couple of places. In general, yes, everywhere was open all weekend. Some were booked on certain nights. In the end, though, we never quite made it up here for dinner.
Princes Street Gardens
My travels took me along the Lothian Road for a bit and then off along Castle Terrace and a loop back around the Usher Hall. I was mainly working on multiple sets of adventure labs, but there were a few odds of other things thrown in. All were easy, and the weather stayed good all day. Along Castle Terrace there were two caches that earned themselves a favourite point. One was a bike lock fastened to the railings and the other was a dummy key safe. In both cases you needed to know the PIN to get in. That was part of the puzzle that needed to be solved in the cache page. Very cleverly done.
From Usher Hall I shuffled my way back across Lothian Road to get into the west end of Princes Street Gardens. Despite being quite busy, it’s still one of my favourite bits of central Edinburgh. It’s low enough down that the road noise from Princes Street isn’t too bad. And the view up to the castle is terrific.
In the gardens there were a further 8-9 caches. They were mainly labs, but also an interesting couple of earth caches and a virtual dedicated to a bear that was a corporal in the Polish Army. Really? Really! Wojtek was a hero at the Battle of Monte Cassino.
Dinner Time
By the time I got back to the Scott Monument, it was well past time for giving up. I called Daughterus Minimus to advise of my whereabouts and then walked home. It turns out they’d finished with retail therapy quite early in the afternoon, and had shuffled home for a rest.
For dinner we ambled round the corner to a local Italian called Giulianos. It was busy but they managed to seat us in a few minutes. Continuing the theme for the weekend so far, the food was excellent.
