Day 8 Dumfries to Edinburgh 

Monday October 27th

Rolling into Edi 

We woke up bleary eyed and got the heck out of dodge. It was time to get to Edinburgh! 

We did have one stop – we arrived at Wilton Lodge Park and the Hawick Museum, the one time home of the Langlands – my friend Caty’s ancestors. It was a beautiful museum, free to enter, with exhibits ranging from oddities to war memorials. After we dipped in to the cute town of Hawick and had a light lunch, perused the shops and found a lovely man selling beautifully made sweaters. 

We got into Edinburgh, to our AirBnB on the Royal Mile just before 4, unpacked the car and headed back out. It was tourist chaos. Beautiful cobblestone streets, single lane alleys, and hoards upon hoards of spacey tourists. We headed north and managed to find free(!) parking on the outskirts, (thanks reddit) as we wouldn’t be driving anywhere during our stay and there is no such thing as street parking. It was a bit of a haul, admittedly, but we needed the exercise, and had planned on getting an uber back with our luggage when we were set to leave. It took us an hour to find a suitable trustworthy spot, up in Leith, and 45ish minutes to hustle back. Mostly downhill, which was nice. It was clear and cool, we got a lay of the land and were back before dark.

We decided to self cater and picked up a little Tesco haul from a couple minutes away. Cheese, crackers, crisps, yogurt, fool, scones and clotted cream, butter, fresh berries, broccolini, scotch pies, and laundry pods. It was fresh laundry time at the AirBnb! We both packed light, just small carry on luggage and backpacks, so not a lot of room for much. We had a little dinner and a movie night, each did a load of clothes and relaxed. It was perfect. We could unpack and reorganize for a couple days, we’d be in the big city for 3 nights. More walking days than driving for a change.