January - SofA decided to do the unthinkable. Instead of simply visiting one European city we decided to not only visit one, not even one and a half, but TWO cities! Edinburgh and Glasgow were the targets for five cold January days at the beginning of 2011. The dates were set and we were on the plane....
Edinburgh - Edinburgh was a great city, brimming with things to do, completely impossible to walk around in and full of culture, history and, rather unexpectedly, gore. Day One brought us to Edinburgh castle, which provided us with great views of the city. We spent the afternoon in the new, and rather swanky Parliament Building at the end of the Royal Mile. Our hostel was a deconsecrated Church that the owners had, rather cleverly, put beds in. I know this is the SofA blog and not Tripadvisor but just don't go there unless you enjoy sleeping in fur jackets!
Day two saw us delve into the great ravines of Edinburgh's underground - a trip to Edinburgh Dungeons followed by a pleasant afternoon roaming around the new monkey house in Edinburgh Zoo. Day three saw a rather unexpectedly thrilling trip to camera obscura, of which the camera obscura itself was the least interesting attraction. There are several levels of really genuinely entertaining optical illusions mazes an interactive exhibitions which I suspect would have been even more thrilling a couple of years ago before the emergence of the Wii and Kinect. Still - it was fantastic. A trip to the John Knox house followed by the Scottish Storytelling Centre followed. Others choose the 3D Lochness Experience which we were later informed was 'a bit shite'.
Thursday we kissed goodbye to our first Scottish companion and trotted off to Glasgow. Glasgow, turned out, was even better! We saw several fantastic rail bridges and stations, the beautiful City Chambers and, of course, the Glasgow School of Art (we may have been shot if we didn't see a bit of Mackintosh). We enjoyed a lovely torchlight procession through the city and made our way to our hostel. The hostel was fantastic - everyone raved about it. I think this may have been largely due to the fact that it had ceilings you could see and your toothpaste didn't freeze but still, one of the best we've been in.
Friday brought the conclusion of our fantastic trip to Scotland - tired but architecturally satisfied we returned to Dublin - our wee heads full of happy thoughts!