Edinburgh

In July, I made my way to Edinburgh, one of my all-time favourite cities to run my last and definitely my hardest Spartan Race. This was always a city I wanted to go back to and with the race, it gave me the perfect excuse! Luckily enough, I also have a friend who lives there now, so I had someone to show me around and do the tourist things with.

We spent the first day walking around the Old Town, up and down the Royal Mile and in the National Museum of Scotland. It is a huge museum on every possible topic and era! We must've spent a solid two hours just skimming through the history of Scotland part. When I go back, I will definitely head back to that museum. We went up to the roof of the museum where we had an incredible view over the city. From there, we could see Arthur's Seat, an extinct volcano in Edinburgh. That was our next stop.

Last time I'd been here was only for two days and it was the middle of winter, so going up there alone didn't seem like such an attractive idea, but now with my friend who'd done it a hundred times, it didn't seem so bad. We also got very very lucky with the weather and had to shed most of our layers while hiking up! The view was breath-taking.

This year, I finally got the chance to go into the Edinburgh Castle. Last time I had been near the end of my budget and the prices were too much. This time, I calculated that in. I had to wait almost three hours to get inside, though. The lines were horrible. Once inside, I realized how huge of a fortress this really was! It was an entire town in and of itself! I got to see the 1 o'clock cannon go off, the crown jewels, the Scottish War Memorial, the Great Hall, and a few interesting museums, like the one about the medieval prisons of the castle.

To finish off my touristing, I decided that I couldn't leave Edinburgh without a Harry Potter Walking Tour. I had heard from a few people that The Potter Trail was a fantastic tour, so I headed to the meeting point and joined the tour. I was definitely not disappointed! We saw a few of the places that inspired J.K. Rowling to write her books, we went into the cemetery when "Tom Riddle" is buried and even scared some muggles by changing the traffic lights with our magic.

I couldn't have had a better trip to Edinburgh. The weather was beautiful, the people were lovely as always and if anything, it just made me fall in love with the country even more.