You could spend an entire week in Edinburgh, but don’t.
Go to Inverness. Its worth the trip. Stop by the tourist
authority (where you book local tours) and find one that doesn’t go the castle and the woolen mills. We found one run by an marine biologist who gave a excellent tour. Took us up on the hills above Loch Ness, walking through the heather. Later he took us swimming in Loch Ness.
Yes, it was cold as a … It was one of the best days I spent on my vacation.
And eat at least one haggis. And get some smoked salmon from Jensens in Edinburgh. And drink a 90 shilling.
Not all at once though.
Not wishing to be overly picky, but uberDave might mean Jenners rather than Jensens. I only mention this because I’ve had the fun of going around Edinburgh asking for directions to a non-existent place, and I don’t want others to have a similarly strange afternoon (It was all very sad, because everyone I asked turned out to be a tourist anyway.) Fortunately, I didn’t realy mind by the time the friend who had given the wrong name arrived.
oops! I bow to Celyn. Its been a few years and a boatload of lost braincells since my trip. I was thinking of a large department store on Princes St. Sorry!
My wife and I drove around Scotland for 10 days and it was the best vaction we’ve had.
We did a circuit around the coast of the NW highlands from Fort William through Inverness and up the east coast (stopping to see some of the stones and ancient burial sites). There is a wonderful B&B in Strathy Bay called Sharvedda on the north coast which has a magnificent view of the stones on the Orkney Islands and one of the most comfortable beds we’ve been in (feather bed with a heavy down duvet, hey, it was October). They were some of the most accomodating and wonderful people we met (and there were a lot of wonderful people).
We continued across the top of Scotland to Durness and down through Unapool. I had never imagined the peat bogs and the harvesting that we had seen along the way. We then went down through Lochinver and on to Ullapool and back through Inverness. We discovered one of the uses for the peat bricks on the Whiskey trail. We didn’t partake in the Scotches, but now truly appreciate the nuances to the smokey beverage.
I found this map if you click one of the types of accomodation…
My wife THOUROUGHLY enjoys Edinburgh and tries to visit when we are visiting relatives in England/Wales (even though it is not particularly convenient).
You can’t go wrong no matter where you go…but you must have a full Scottish breakfast, and find a Fish&Chip shop that does the deep-fried Mars bar (I hear they’re great).
I only had 3.5 days in Scotland, so I spent it all in Edinburgh and LOVED it. I don’t know if you’re religious, porcupine, but my then-boyfriend (now fiance) and I went to the Palm Sunday service at St. Giles Cathedral. It was BEAUTIFUL, and it’s Presbyterian (not high church like some Churches of England) so we felt very comfortable there. We also loved the castle and exploring the Royal Mile. We stayed in a great little B&B – oh, what was it called? It’s in Rick Steves’ Britain guidebook (which I HIGHLY recommend, BTW). The Something Guest House. (helpful, I know. But I’ll know it when I see it.)
The train network in Britain is totally SNAFU at the moment (one of the benefits of free enterprise) and the latest prediction is that it won’t return to normal until March so, depending on when you’re coming, you might like to look at flying between London and Edinburgh.
If the trains are back to normal, you might like to think about taking the Caledonian Sleeper which will save you two nights’ hotel bill and several waking hours’ travelling time. It’s not the most comfortable night’s sleep, though.
Some of the themed, guided walking tours which start from the Market Place (?sp. Mercat/Merket) on the Royal Mile are quite good. I did a tour of the catacombs when I had an afternoon to spare in Edinburgh earlier in the year.