July 9th - 11th, 2016 - Edinburgh

After spending a couple of days in the Peak District climbing we headed to “The North” ..... 

to spend some time in Edinburgh. The day we got in we tried to check out the local climbing wall but only arrived as it closed, then got dinner to go from a small restaurant in the “Old Town” called Oink!, where the only make one thing but do it quite well. Edinburgh is a fantastic city and where J.K. Rowling lived while writing the Harry Potter books. We did our usual walking tour of of the city and also checked out the Edinburgh Castle on our first day. We headed to the cemetery to visit Tom Riddle’s (Lord Voldemort) grave across the street from the above mentioned cafe .....

and the views of the city from the castle were quite amazing .....

so amazing that Dylan felt a need to stand guard over it .....

In the evening we headed to The Witchery for dinner, the only “fine dinning” night we had in our entire 6 week trip ..... 

The food was quite nice with Dylan getting his usual, whatever is closest to a hamburger .....

While Linda and I shared the lamb wellington. We had tried to check out the Edinburgh International Climbing Arena the day we got to Edinburgh but got lost since all forms of sat. nav. take you to the wrong place, though different places depending on the app you use. Instead we made a day out of going there. We first checked out the “New Town” part of Edinburgh, getting lunch at a restaurant called The Dogs where the food was reasonably priced and quite good, comfort food, and again Dylan with something as close to a hamburger as possible .....

After lunch we headed out of the city to the climbing arena where Junior Worlds has been held on several occasions. The facility is enormous and makes anything I’ve been to in the US seem tiny ..... 

There are 5 main walls that are all 60+ feet tall including a section that is 100’ tall and an angle adjustable competition wall. Before we headed home Dylan wanted a snack so he headed to the vending machine and returned with .....

Guinness chips, apparently they start them young in Scotland.

We quite liked Scotland and Edinburgh in particular. There are lots of nice homes just outside the main part of the city where it does not seem that crowded but you are still really close to the restaurants and shops, you can also quickly get out of town and to the hills or ocean. All in all it just seemed a bit easier to navigate as a traveler and more homey than London.