Short story of this trip is that after talking to a work colleague about things to do in York he mentioned Edinburgh was under 3 hours away on the east coast mainline and a day later Virgin announced one of their bargainous seat sales. I took this as fate and I booked us a day return for under £60 (retuning first class too!). We were late getting there due to some issues on the line, it did mean we could claim back our journey there so the whole journey cost us £35. I wanted to incorporate this trip into my ‘Weekend In’ series hence the squeezing it into this even though we spent less than a day’s working hours there!
I’d had some great recommendations for things to do whilst there, and a lot of people said don’t bother visiting the castle, so we didn’t. We went straight for lunch and had been recommended the Tower restaurant which is at the top of the National Museum of Scotland as the views are insane. As was the food.
They do a set lunch and early dinner menu for £20 each but we opted for the set a la Carte menu that came up at £35 each for 3 courses each. The food was well presented (Aside from the questionable chocolate smear on my dessert – it just looked so wrong!) and excellently served too, not to mention scrumptious.
After that we wandered around the Museum below, checking out Dolly the Sheep, Flamingoes, Spelling robots and some fabulous fashion. 
Everyone we spoke to said that a visit to The Real Mary Kings Close was a must do. So we made that our next mission, waking amongst the blue skies streets to get there and doing a bit of shopping, I was obsessed with the Liquorice Tree Gift Shop as it had so many fab things inside- and the window displays were on point!
Mary Kings Close is basically an underground street, it used to be out in the open but they built on top of it and you get to walk through rooms and learn about what it was like in those times. You aren’t allowed to take photos in there , but it was really interesting and if you’re into a bit of lighthearted history then I recommend it.
The sun soon started to set so we set to finding a few places for a drink before we went home, another friend recommended Hoot the Redeemer – blink and you may miss it, it’s a doorway inbetween shops and eateries with steps to their basement location. There’s an old style fortune teller on the bottom right and that’s actually the door to get in. When you do get in you’re greeted with old style cinema seats, popcorn, and ice cream vending machines! The lucky dip machine in the photos allowed you to claw out 2 flavours to then take to the bar for a cocktail to be made. And my were they delicious!
We then headed off out to catch our train back, we’d opted for first class which meant we got to carry on our drinking and got a small meal to help soak up some of the alcohol! We had a fab day exploring but do wish we’d had more time. But it’s a good excuse to go again! Have you ever been I Edinburgh? And What’s your fave thing to do there- I’m going to start making a list for visit two.