7:50, and it's a perfect Sunday morning. Again, I slept like a log at the Links Hotel and woke refreshed.
I decided to take the first coffee of the day in the library. Yesterday's Spanish guitar music, which played in the breakfast room, I found a bit disturbing, and it is not entirely calm here either. The library is located close to the pub bar and the music there is some 80s style rock pop stuff, but at least it is not directly in the room.
Life is good!
Yesterday was the day of abandoned plans. We intended to visit the Edinburgh Castle, but when we arrived we skipped it. We just couldn't get ourselves to pay 16 quid to then walk for a couple of hours between cold stone walls. Neither the crown jewels nor the National War Museum of Scotland could tickle our fancy. The castle is very impressive, though. It's a proper castle and we keep wondering what effort it must have been to build such a huge thing on top of that rock.
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Edinburgh Castle seen from Princes Street Gardens
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We strolled down Rose Street, starting at the side close to the castle and stumbled over The Dome, a super posh restaurant and bar. All mirrors and chandeliers, beautiful ceilings and floors... We had heard about it before; it was said that it is a glamorous place for dinner with cocktails at the bar after, and a glamorous place it is, indeed! We discovered it late morning, were peckish and cold - it was only 13 degrees C - and so we skipped plans to go there at night and used it to replenish our resources with coffee and danish in the club room. I really am glad that we did not abandon this plan entirely, and I could very well imagine a dressed-up night out, should I ever come back to Edinburgh.
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| Scott Monument |
Thus refueled and warmed we kept ambling along Rose Street, turned right at the end and found Jenners an old style department store, which actually is a House of Fraser, but one wouldn't know from the beautiful banisters and doors. It is a quirky building, which is addictive; it has corners and corridors, staircases up here and down there, leading the customer deeper and higher, until the 3rd floor with the food section is reached. Not quite Harrods, but loads of Short breads, cakes and chocolates, wine and whisky. The view of the food bar goes to the castle on one side, the Scott Monument and the old part of the city to the other, and the park in-between. So we treated ourselves to a nice glass of Prosecco and just enjoyed life.
We crossed the train tracks by the railway bridge, strolled into the old centre, and then made our way back towards the castle along the Royal Mile, investigated the Tartan weaving and Mill Exhibition, and then felt a strong pull... Whisky!
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| The old centre |
The Scotch Whiskey Experience called our names out loud. So far we only have explored the shop, and are planning to do the tour today. Nobody ever said this trip is for fun; it's hard work to learn about Whisky! Hence we decided a decent meal was needed to survive the bedtime sampling. Lebanese was the mutual choice and Detlef's iPad recommended Beirut. An absolutely excellent choice! ... and not pricey at all...
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| The starters... absolutely delicious! |
Although we felt well prepared for the Whisky, the cold had got the better of us. We needed to get to the hotel to warm up. So the plan to visit the 'Voodo Bar' was abandoned and we again found ourselves in our house pub. I am testing a theory: According to a Whisky sorter display, which we saw at the Scotch Whisky Experience it appears that most of the Whiskys starting on 'G' are non-smokey... I really do hate smoke flavours. At the bar however they were running out of 'G' Whiskys, so I had a Jura instead. It was quite an interesting choice. I always thought they are either smokey or not, but I now learned that in parts of the process peat can be used which makes it earthy. And this one tastes like a fresh spring morning, with the mossy grounds steaming when the sun comes out after a refreshing rain.
... and I still didn't dare the haggis...
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