Trip to Edinburgh day 3

Saturday March 4th 2017
I woke up with a swollen knee and feet. Well I could rest another day and we needed to use our time, so we took a walk over to old town and Royal Mile via Advocates Close...with all the stairs...

Our goal this day was shopping, so our feet turned towards a whiskey shop. It is very unusual for a Swedish person to go to a liqeur store and taste the products, because alcohol selling is restricted by our government. I bought a nice gin and Johan bought a couple of whiskeys.

After some more shopping we went for lunch at Patisserie Valerie, we got a huge plate each with lovely sandwiches, so no place for tarts left. 

We also booked a tour at Mary Kings Close, that is another underground tour. The City Chambers was built on top of old Edinburgh. They simply chopped off the up to 14 stairs houses and used them as foundation for a new large building. The maze like underground around Mary Kings Close gives you a picture of how daily life could be around the alleys in old times, sans odour. The poorest lived at the bottom stairs in the dirt were you also held cattle. Johan actually heard a mooing sound in one of the chambers. Mary Kings Close was visited by Most Haunted in one episode were you clearly can hear the mooing of a ghost cow.

I wear black clothes but the IR-camera changes my outfit to white.

The house in the photo above is built 1490 ca. This is how the houses around the Mary Kings Close looked like except higher. After 5 stairs built in stone, they usually continued another 4-10 stairs in wood and extra balconys that made them wider at the top. It happended that the badly engineered buildings collapsed.

After lots of walking shopping I was completely exhausted by afternoon. I could simply not walk anymore, so we spent our last night at the hotel. The name of the hotel is The Principal and is very pleasant, nice staff, good food and perfect service.

We arrived home with lots of gifts for the kids. Alfons had to try all the flavours of Bertie Botts beans. He actually ate 6 of them until he got too much of gag reflexes and had to stop. I didn't dare to taste one.