edinburgh, scotland

We spent three days in Scotland between the 27th and the 30th of November. This hostel was a little bit outside of the city (around 15 minutes by bus). At first we were skeptical of this, but it turned out to be great. Out hostel was built in an old castle-esque building right on the ocean.

The above view was taken from the top of Cramond Island looking back at the shore. Our hostel was situated about 50 yards off of the left side of the photo. The first morning we were there, we checked the tide charts and figured out when we could make it out (and back) to the island. There was about a 3 hour span of time when the tide is low enough that you can make the journey out to the island from shore (just over a mile).

We quickly discovered that this island was covered in WWII ruins. These buildings included gun turrets (to gauge the port), ammunition storage as well as bunkers and housing. We were the only ones on the island and it was a pretty dark and wet day. The atmosphere in these buildings was seriously creepy.

The next day the weather cleared up and we had a chance to see the town, castle and scenery. Edinburgh Castle offered a great view of the entire city and was pretty spectacular itself. Seen below is St. Mary's Cathedral.

We got there at a decent hour in the morning and this late in the season, the sun never makes it to the top of the sky. That meant great light for pictures pretty much all day.

After leaving the castle, we walked back into town for some dinner and then headed back to the hostel just before it started raining.

Arriving back at the hostel, the sky had cleared up a bit and the sun was just setting. In search of a nice sunset view, we stumbled through through some brush and over an already-down fence onto a golf course. We spent the evening watching movies and reading. The next morning we traveled to Dublin pretty early.