Leaving Inverness and with a short stop in Edinburgh we continue on to London and home.
Edinburgh - Candlemaker Row
The morning starts again with a delicious British breakfast. We pack the last things and before 9:00 we leave our cozy accommodation for good. Our direction of travel is the bus station. The driver is quite a funny mush. His announcement: 'Drinking alcohol on the bus is forbidden. If anyone drinks it and doesn't invite me, they will be expelled from the bus". From then on, the journey was fine.
The journey from Inverness to Edinburgh
We arrive in Edinburgh at one o'clock and the weather is really summery. After a long time, I'm pulling out my shorts again. We're walking towards the centre when we come across a summer outdoor festival by the station. Janet is in the mood for a beer, so we sit here for a while. A £6 beer is the most expensive beer I've ever had.
Once we finish our drinks we head up the hill to Edinburgh Castle. On the way, we stop at the magnificent New Colleague University. We walk out onto the Kings mile (aka the set of streets from Edinburgh Castle to Holyrood Abbey) and walk towards the castle. But we only reach Espalande Square, beyond that there is a charge. We turn around and walk towards The Hub church. On the way we buy magnets in one of the many Gift shops.
Edinburgh - Scott Monument
Edinburgh - Bank of Scotland
Edinburgh - Royal Scottish Academy of Art & Architecture
Edinburgh - The Hub
Edinburgh - Johnston Terrace
From the church, follow the Royal Mile to George IV Bridge, which leads to The Meadows Park. We stay here for a while and return to Greyfriars Kirk and its cemetery, which we walk through. From there we continue down the hill and walk around the bottom of Edinburgh Castle.
Edinburgh - St. Giles' Cathedral
Edinburgh - The Meadows park
Edinburgh - West Bow Street
Edinburgh - Grassmarket
Edinburgh Castle
Edinburgh - St. Cuthbert's Church
Edinburgh - Dean Ramsay Memorial
The last point of today is a walk to St. Mary's Cathedral. We won't be able to do much more today as it is getting dangerously close to our train departure time.
Edinburgh - Dean Ramsay Memorial
Edinburgh Castle
So we turn off towards Waverley station. We'll have dinner at McDonald's. To our delight, they still make pint shakes. After that, there's nothing to do but wait for the platform of our train to London to appear. Today we're on a blue Hitachi unit from Lumo. Unlike the Lner, this has far more comfortable seats, so a saving grace for our short sleep today, which is made miserable by an absolutely unbelievably whiny child who screamed shrill screams for perhaps the entire journey. I did get some sleep though. We arrive in London at 1am at Kings cross station platform number 9. 9 ¾ is not found again. We get off and Janet remembers that she forgot her scratching post on the train. So we go back to the platform and she remembers it's in her jacket pocket. This little story gives us a little time to fill before our bus to the airport.
London - Kings cross Station
The rest of the time is spent walking from the station to Baker street. I thought it would be deserted here, at most we would run into some local Jack the Ripper, but London is alive even at this late hour of the night. There's traffic on Euston Road like it's morning rush hour and not 1.30am. The walk to Baker Street takes us about an hour and the rest is spent waiting at the bus stop. The National Express bus arrived on time and was sold out, so anyone who didn't have a ticket for a particular service was out of luck. I'm going to completely sleep on the way to the airport. At the airport we learn that the flight to and from Katowice is an hour late. We sleep through the wait for the plane. By flying so early in the morning, there are no crowds yet and the security check is quick, you just have to walk through a taped corridor about a kilometer long before it, so another nice walk in the morning. We'll sleep the rest of the time in the departure lounge. In Katowice we have to get to the station quickly, because the big time reserve we should have had there was the one there and we had a lot to do to avoid missing the train. We made it and with another delay we finally arrived in the Czech Republic, thus successfully completing our Scottish journey.
Useful links:
Cedar Villa Guest House
More accommodation options in Inverness
Megabus
Citylink
Accommodation in Edinburgh
Lumo
National Express (buses to the airport)
Wizz air
Public transport Katowice
PKP Intercity
Czech Railways
Other attractions in Edinburgh
