Edinburgh on Foot in 1.5 Days: Dean Village, Sausage and Mash, Haunted Edinburgh
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Along the Water of Leith in New Town |
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Cockburn Street in Old Town |
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St. Giles Cathedral on High Street |
Day 1. Dean Village, Sausage & Mash, Spooky Edinburgh
Edinburgh Castle Apartments
After a long flight, we arrived at the Edinburgh Castle Apartments at 4:35 pm. This was conveniently located on Castle Street in New Town, just north of the Edinburgh Castle with easy access to shops, restaurants, trams and buslines. We booked the Studio Suite with a king bed and a "sofa bed" for 3 adults, and were pleased to find it was on the ground floor (no elevator, 4 floors). Overall, the room was spacious with a large closet. However, unless you are traveling with a child, I would suggest booking the next larger room. The sofa bed had thin cushions and felt small even for my 5'2" daughter. Check-in and check-out were quite easy, as the doors are locked by a keypad so there is no key to return, and the price was quite reasonable given the great location.![]() |
View from front door of Edinburgh Castle Apartments |
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An unexpected Pittsburgh connection in New Town. This statue honors the son of the William Pitt for which Pittsburgh was named. The sky was still bright at 10:20 pm! |
Village of Dean: the "Water of Leith Village"
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View from the single arch bridge of Dean Path |
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Scot-Revival architecture in Dean Village |
Makars Gourmet Mash Bar
After heading back to our apartment to grab the slightly warmer clothes that we had brought, buying a sweater or two along the way, we turned our attention to dinner. I had read good reviews about Makars from some Trip Advisor travel logs, and noted that the one on the Mound was right on the way to the meeting spot for our 8 pm Ghost Tour later that evening.The climb up the Mound towards High Street has a strong gravity factor, so wear comfortable shoes and allow plenty of time! And no, as we found out the following morning, there is no passable shortcut through the attractive Princes Street Gardens.
The menu at Makars is dominated by sausages and different variations on mashed potatoes, although there were two good vegetarian options as well. The star of the show that evening was my husband's selection: Makars wild boar sausage with onion gravy served over spring onion and crispy smoked bacon mash (rumbledethumps).
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Clockwise from top right: wild boar sausage, gratinated portabello, traditional smoked sausage |
My daughter enjoyed the gratinated portabello mushroom stuffed with garlic, herbs and cheese, stacked on a garlic-herb butter rosti (fried shredded potatoes), selecting a salad instead of the mash.
The Orange Free Ghost Tour
It was still surprisingly bright outside, although it was a tad darker on the stairs of the narrow closes that cut straight down from High Street. Although more macabre than ghostly, we learned a good deal of history, about the very real witch executions by drowning in the now-drained Nor Loch, the poor sanitation of the day, medical bodysnatchers, murders and bizarre events in those alleyways. Our tour lasted nearly two hours, and gave us a fascinating preview of Edinburgh for the day to come.
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Anchor Close - site of one ghost story |
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Sir Walter Scott monument near the end of the former Nor Loch -- final resting place for accused witches & warlocks |
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Canongate Kirkyard - thwarting body snatchers |
Click here for Day 2. Edinburgh Castle, Oink and Diagon Alley, Grassmarket, Golden Mile, Coro the Chocolate Cafe
Click here for Holyrood (Queen's) Park and Hiking to Arthur's Seat
Read about our two days driving to castles, palaces, abbeys and a neolithic henge.
Day 3. Dunfermline, Castle Campbell, Stirling Castle, Antonine Wall, Cairnpapple Hill
Day 4. Linlithgow, Rosslyn Chapel, St. Martin's Kirk, Angels with Bagpipes
🐾 Edinburgh Castle and High Street exist on a sort of elevated ridge above New Town to the north and the Grassmarket area of Old Town to the south. The narrow steps of the pedestrian closes are great shortcuts for navigating Old Town. Together the Old and New Town areas of Edinburgh form a UNESCO World Heritage Site. New Town was a planned community built between the mid-18th and mid-19th centuries, and is "new" relative to the medieval and reformation era roots of Old Town.
🐾 With Google Maps, you can mark sites of interest, and then download maps for offline use on the iPhone. After searching for a site in Google Maps, you click the "Save" button and indicate which list. I marked hotels and potential places to eat with pink hearts using the "Favorites" list, and points of interest to visit with green flags using the "Want to go" list. That way, when we got hungry, we could quickly check what was nearby or on the way to the next sight. The lists can be accessed by clicking the three horizontal lines in the Search box, and then clicking on "Your places" and selecting the "Saved" tab. We kept our phones in airplane mode for the entire trip, and had no problems navigating using the iPhone GPS.
https://www.love2chow.com/2019/10/edinburgh-on-foot-in-15-days-dean.html
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