There is something so wonderful about Scotland. Throughout my entire time in the country, I had such a great time. The people were friendly, the scenery was lovely, and there was plenty to do. I knew I’d have a good time visiting, but being there went above and beyond.

I spent the first few days of my trip in Edinburgh and I am completely in love with the city. Here is a little recap of what I did and where I stayed while I was lucky enough to visit:

Scotsman Hotel

I stayed at the Scotsman Hotel during my stay and the room was incredible. There was a bottle of sparkling wine and two drams of whisky waiting for us upon arrival to the room. For some reason, they gave us an incredible room which was gigantic and had a beautiful view. The staff was incredibly friendly and it was easy to get to a lot of stuff from the hotel. 

If you’re looking for a higher end hotel in the city, but not wanting to completely wreck your wallet, it’s definitely a good one to check out! But I will say, definitely skip the restaurant connected (Grand Cafe) to it. We went there the first night because we were so exhausted and didn’t have the energy to explore and the food was not very good. 

Food/Drinks

I wanted to try a Scottish breakfast while I was in town and the one at Society was recommended to me. So, I made my way over and had to give it a try. The overall vibe of the restaurant was really nice and we got there right before the rush hit, so it was really lucky timing. The food was really good and I was overall really pleased with the breakfast. 

I’m a big whiskey drinker, but I’ve never really gotten into Scotch, so I was really excited to give Scotch a try in Scotland. To give it the best shot, I went to a whisky tasting where they did a food pairing. I’d never seen people pair up whisky with food before, so it was a fun thing to try. It really did give it a completely different experience than I’ve had before, so it was super enjoyable. I definitely found a style I liked best and ones that I know I for sure am not into.

On the less fancy side, I drank about a million glasses of Innis & Gunn by the end of the trip. It was everywhere and easy to quickly grab. I actually quite liked it overall! It’s a very easy, sippable lager.

Afternoon tea was a must on my list of things to do while I was visiting, so I went to the Palm Court in the Balmoral. As I walked into the room, there was a harpist playing music above us on a little balcony, which was just the amount of over the top that I was looking for.

Palm Court as a whole was really pretty and the food and tea was delicious. The pastries/desserts were not my favorite, but the rest of the food was quite nice! I really liked the scones.

Museums / Activities

Edinburgh is chock full of historical sites, but I’ll just talk about the two favorite museums to keep this blog short(ish). The two that I visited were part of the National Galleries collection. The first one I visited was the National, which is a collection of Scottish and international art. I really enjoyed this one a lot and highly recommend visiting if you’re a fellow art lover as well.

The second museum I visited was the Portrait Gallery. This was another really nice museum to walk through! I enjoyed the historical part of the museum where it dove into the history of Scotland, but also appreciated that it shared contemporary portraits as well. It was a really nice mix within the museum and was an interesting one to walk through.

Where I was staying in Edinburgh, there were lots of historical buildings nearby. It was really fun to get out of the hotel and just walk around the area to see what we would stumble upon. What I saw definitely only scratched the surface as well, so I’m looking forward to going back at some point and seeing much more.

Edinburgh also has a great botanical garden called Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. The entire garden was a very expansive area with lots of different sections to it. It was a little rainy in the morning as well, so by the time I had gotten there, it was pretty empty even though the rain had gone away.

I have plenty more to share about my trip to Scotland, so stay tuned. But hopefully this little taste of what I did in Edinburgh is fun inspiration for you to take your own trip to this amazing city. It really was such a great time and I can’t wait to go back again at some point in the future.