What Do I Do When My Love is Away?: UK 2023, Day 01

A long-awaited and anticipated trip finally came through for us as friends from our old life in the States came visiting for a long week in Northern England and Scotland. As some of you know (and at this point who can remember what has been told to whom?) there has long been a trip on the horizon during which John would walk the width of England following Hadrian’s Wall. Unfortunately, a little while back it unfolded that unforeseen schedule conflicts were going to keep two of the participants from coming. The other two (besides us) were still coming; in fact, they had non-refundable tickets and had arranged child care. They were going to Scotland no matter what! So, we decided pretty quickly to shelve the two-week hiking itinerary and simply have a nice, seven day vacation in the U.K. with a couple of our dearest friends. There are worse ways to spend a week!

Due to the mild vagaries of Ryanair’s flight schedule (not all cities are available every day), we flew into Edinburgh on a midday flight, took a bus to …

… and a hush falls over the room. Yes yes, Ryanair. We have railed against Ryanair, and for what was good reason at the time. Actually, this time everything worked really well! Yes, our flight was delayed a few minutes and there was a super scary 30+ minutes when absolutely no luggage made it off our flight. This was only mildly ameliorated by the fact that no luggage was arriving on any of the three carousels in the international arrivals area. (You may remember that luggage issues at EDI made the news last year when literally thousands of suitcases went missing and were later found in an abandoned warehouse. I certainly thought about it as we waited and waited and . . .) In the end we were united with our bags. A thing you may not know if you haven’t flown much in Europe: the airlines are divorced from the baggage-handling process almost entirely. With isolated exceptions, third-party companies exist here to move bags to and fro in the airports. We can speculate as to why (our personal guess is liability shenanigans) but the truth is we can’t really lay the blame for the luggage issue at the feet of Ryanair, which means… well, things went basically fine with our new best pal Ryan. Thus encumbered with our bags, it was off to the city proper.

Here’s great news: for 8 pounds sterling, you can get a roundtrip bus right into the center of Edinburgh on the Airlink 100. It runs 24/7, every 10 minutes from 04:00 until just after midnight, and then every half hour. Its clean, efficient, and well-signed. Two other routes (200 and 400) take you to the Ocean Terminal and Fort Kinnaird, respectively. Considering that a taxi will cost you 30-40 pounds, and even a rideshare service will easily cost 10 pounds one way, this is a very good deal. The ride is about 30 minutes each way, depending on traffic. Our route went smoothly and we were downtown even faster than expected.

(There is also a tram service that takes about the same amount of time, has a few more stops, and costs about the same.)

We stayed at a great place on George Street, a fantastic area for walking and eating. Eden Locke has fast-fast-fast wifi, a cafe, in-room washer/dryer, fully-kitted-out kitchenettes, underfloor heating, air conditioning, and a 24-hour front desk. Oh, and they are dog friendly! They are a new brand and have a surprising range of locations — Manchester UK? — all over Europe, including London, Dublin, Munich, and Berlin. New locations are coming to Lisbon, Zurich, Copenhagen, and Paris.

Dinner was at a classic steakhouse, Hawksmoor. (Lisa has been craving filet mignon, a cut of meat not properly found in Braga, so that made the choice of where very easy.) It was fun — but a bit of a bracer for “big city” prices. We had the belly ribs, which were rich and tasty, and steaks. Yummy all around.

We had a lovely day in Edinburgh all in all… which just drove home the point that really, someday, we ought to actually visit Edinburgh. The last time we were here was 11-ish years ago to the day; we had truly atrocious weather and mostly stayed in indoors. This time we’re here for one day before collecting friends and heading south. Someday, Edinburgh, someday… This day, however, was over, and we had a big one tomorrow. Company arrives!