When I was looking for live folk music venues on Google I found one page where someone had asked for a pub that features bagpipes. One person tactfully replied “Bagpipes are more of an outdoor instrument” while another said, “If you find a place like that, let us know so we can all avoid it!”.

We enjoyed our stay at the Hampton Inn even if it was a little cramped. We had expected to use a roll-away bed to have enough room for everyone but they don’t have them. We ended up getting really creative which means I slept with two kids and we slept the short way on the bed. Luckily, I like to have my feet hang off the edge when I sleep so it worked out okay. We had their free breakfast and then walked the 6 minute walk to then airport. We had a limit of 6 bags total for the EasyJet flight and it felt nice traveling so light. It made me wish we had packed even less for our trip. We arrived in Edinburgh and grabbed lunch from a Tex-Mex place that we couldn’t pass up once we smelled it. I hadn’t had Tex-Mex in 3 months and it was delicious.

We took a tram into town and then rather than walk the final 20 minutes to the apartment we are staying at, we grabbed an Uber. There is another heat wave which meant it was 76F (24.5C) today in Edinburgh. Everyone was complaining about the heat here which was a little funny but I guess it normally is rainy and cold here.

Asa found a Bop-It at the apartment and spent some of the afternoon trying to beat the high score.

The apartment we are in we are renting from someone who posted to World-Schoolers, a Facebook group for house swapping and renting. The owner offered the space to us for half of what we were going to pay at a low-end hotel. We are located near the Edinburgh Old Town which is great. We also have this beautiful view of the crags Holyrood Park.

After settling in at the apartment we went on a free walking tour of the Old Town with Sandeman Tours. Our tour guide was Canadian which was a little disappointing at first but it turned out to be perfect because her accent was really easy for us to understand.

The Royal Mile

The unicorn: the national animal of Scotland

Protestant church

Scottish Enlightenment Philosopher David Hume statue. You touch his toes for good luck.

Lady Stairs Close.

Parrot in a basket statue found in a close we traveled down with our tour group.

Street art

Nole spotted Nova’s name in this window.

Esme wants a tropical theme to her room, specifically these flowers hanging from her ceiling.

Former site of the gallows where public executions used to take place.

The mortar in this brick wall was made with the cremains of burnt at the stake witches so they couldn’t reform their bodies from their ashes.

Greyfriars Kirkyard. Over 100,000 people are buried in this graveyard, most of them plague victims in mass graves.

Fortified city wall. The side on the right was built during peace time and the left was built in haste after a lost battle.

Mortsafe: a temporary place to be buried so the local theives wouldn’t dig up your body to sell it to the medical school. Once you were sufficiently decayed, they moved you to your plot.

Statue of Bobby the dog who slept by his owner’s grave for 14 years.

We tried to go to a pub with Scottish folk music but no kids were allowed. We ended up eating at a Asian noodle restaurant on our way home which was really tasty. We are all pretty travel weary tonight and things have been pretty quiet since we got back from dinner.