This morning we boarded another Virgin Trains East Coast train from York to Edinburgh.  As we were travelling first class, we had lunch served at our seats which was very nice.

After arriving at Waverly Station in Edinburgh, we walked across the North Bridge to our hotel, the Hilton Edinburgh Carlton.  You can see my review of the hotel here:

After checking in and briefly unpacking, we walked along the Royal Mile.  Along the way we spent some time with some amazing birds where G had me take lots of pictures of him holding an owl, for a fee of course!

We checked out all the tourist sites along the Mile, of which there were many, and got our bearings.  Finally we reached the top and Edinburgh Castle.

We spent some time looking at the amazing views of Edinburgh from the outside of the Castle.  It was much much colder here than down further south.  We then purchased our Scotland Explorer passes from the office at Edinburgh Castle, so we were ready to beat the lines when visiting the next morning.

We returned to the Hilton for a glass of wine in the Executive Lounge before walking in the opposite direction down to Howie’s at Waterloo where G had beef bourgignon and I had chicken with a lentil cassoulet.  We both finished with sticky toffee puddings after a delicious meal