Day Trips from Edinburgh

Hi, Dennise K,

Glasgow, Stirling, Culross, St. Abbs, New Lanark/Falls of Clyde, Falkirk, Pentland Hills (for hiking), and Dundee, just for starters.

Enjoy!

Mike (Auchterless)

Thanks, Mike! I will put them on my list to check out!

Dennise

In Dec Rick Steves has a 4th edition Scotland guidebook coming out. I believe he has two self-guided walking tours in Edinburgh you should take. Another day walk-up Arthur’s Seat and also take a bus to the Royal Yacht Britannia.
Good day trip options by direct train are Glasgow (1h), Dundee (1h 30m) and Stirling (1h). If you’re willing to rent a car drive to East Neuk (1h 30m) and St Andrews (1h 30m).
Make sure you eat a meal at The Old Bell Pub. That’s where I had the best carbonara I’ve tasted in Europe while football fans rooted for their favorite team on the big screen.

These are great, Mary! Won't be renting a car but those other ideas sound fun!

Dennise

I'd highly recommend taking a Mercat tour of the Royal Mile. We were in Edinburgh in June and while the Mile is OK on its own, a tour can bring its history to life. https://www.mercattours.com/tours.

It's dated, but underrated, but the peoples story museum deserves an hour.
https://www.edinburghmuseums.org.uk/venue/peoples-story-museum

It won't take you long but the National Library of Scotland has a small 'treasures' room with some interesting exhibits. We stumbled on it looking for wifi.
https://www.nls.uk/treasures/

Are you an Outlander fan? Mercat has a good tour of the Edinburgh sites used on the TV show. For daytrips outside the city, check out Rabbies Tours. We did one to Melrose Abbey and Rosslyn Chapel and another to some Outlander sites.https://www.rabbies.com/en

I highly recommend Stirling Castle. We liked Edinburgh Castle but loved Stirling.

Glasgow is a big city and I don't think a day trip does it justice. It doesn’t have a compact tourist zone like Edinburgh and I feel it needs at least an overnight stay.

Rosslyn Chapel (in the town of Roslin) is accessible by bus from Edinburgh. I believe it takes about 40 minutes.

There are buses to the East Neuk villages, but you must select carefully since only some of them take the more picturesque route.

Dundee has some excellent museums, including the V&A Design Museum. Filling a day there would be very easy.

Glasgow's worth at least two day-trips if you're interested in the Charles Rennie Mackintosh buildings on top of the city's other sights.

A trip down the Borders Railway to Galashiels and a trip over the Forth Railway Bridge to Dunfirmline or carry on over the Tay Bridge to Dundee

You don't need a car to get to St Andrews, it is easy to get there by bus or train and bus.

You might find one of these books helpful if you like to walk. I purchased both for my upcoming trip but haven’t had a chance to look closely at them yet.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0008496331/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1902910699/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Dennise,

My daughter studied a semester in Edinburgh (2016), and she compiled a list (for a friend) of her favorite places to eat.

Here it is:

Food/coffee

• The Piemaker: super good, cheap (1-2 pounds!) little savory pies. My favorite is definitely the Scotch Steak Ale pie! Great for a little snack.

• Holyrood 9A: this restaurant has great hamburgers and craft beers, perfect for dinner

• Oink: the BEST pulled pork sandwiches on rolls with different options for sauces, great for lunch

• Mother India’s Café: yummy, inexpensive Indian food

• Mosque Kitchen: another place for Indian food, very affordable and delicious

• The Potting Shed: a tiny bit on the pricy side, but super yummy food for a nice dinner, I definitely recommend

• The Scran and Scallie: super yummy rustic gastropub with a modern Scottish menu

• Ting Thai Caravan: good, little Thai place in Old Town Edinburgh, close to the University

• Steak and Mussels: pricey, but great if you’re in the mood for seafood or steak

• Boozy Cow: yummy boozy milkshakes and great burgers/beers, near Princes St

• Black Medicine Coffee: there are two locations (both really good), a nice place to stop and grab some coffee/tea and pastries

• Love crumb: a little cafe that has specialty cakes and coffee

• Mary’s Milk Bar: a great little ice cream place in the Grassmarket.

• Brew Lab: nice coffee place right near the University

Pubs/bars/clubs

• Malone’s: a great Irish pub

• The Brass Monkey: they have board games and a little room bordered with couches

• The Tron

• Panda and sons: a pricier cocktail bar, but people like to visit it because the outside appears to be a barber shop, and to get to the bar you walk downstairs and open a door that looks like a bookcase

• The Hanging Bat: perfect for craft beers, but also has really good food (I loved their Mac n Cheese!)

• Revolution: bar that has a dance floor, I really liked it cause there’s enough room to actually move…and they have super cheap/good ice cream shots (yes they sound gross but they’re amazing!)

• BrewDog has lots of great beers and good drinks, and the owners dogs are sometimes there

• The Devil’s Advocate: super interesting cocktails and yummy wine, there’s also a terrace and deck

• The Hive is an inexpensive nightclub in Old Town: mostly full of students though which makes it pretty loud, crowded and sweaty (sorry I didn’t go to any other clubs so I can’t help you out there)

Enjoy your trip, Edinburgh is a beautiful city!

Edited to add… Please keep in mind that all of these places were there in 2016. I only checked a few of them, but not all, so hopefully they are all still in business.

And here in my daughter’s list of places to visit:

• The Castle: it’s great to see from the outside and you get a great view of the city; however, I don’t think it’s worth it to pay to go inside.

• Edinburgh’s Camera Obscura and World or Illusions: this is basically
  an optical illusion museum that is an attraction that a lot of people
  enjoy (I never got to go but I wish I had because it looks fun)

• The Royal Mile is another must. It is in the Old Town part of Edinburgh and consists of a ton of restaurants, tourist shops, coffee places and there are usually a lot of great vendors there as well. You have to visit the Royal Mile market, which is inside of an old church and is full of unique vendors.

• The Grassmarket: a historic marketplace in the Old Town of Edinburgh that has a lot of different restaurants and shops (some great old book stores!). There’s a nice farmer’s market every Saturday

• Walking around Holyrood Park and climbing Arthur’s Seat is a must! It probably takes about 30 min to climb up, it’s not too strenuous and you have a great 360 view of Edinburgh. The Holyrood Palace is also right there/pretty cool to see. I didn’t get to go in it because they were preparing it for the Queen of England (since she stays there when she visits!)

• Going up to Calton Hill is another must: it’s another place to see the entire city, as well as some great architecture

• Walking around the University of Edinburgh is really nice and you can also walk through the Meadows, which is the large park behind the main center (George Square) of campus

• The National Museum of Scotland is free and a nice place to stop by if it’s raining a ton. The museum is HUGE though, but full of really interesting stuff (not sure if she’s still there, but Dolly the sheep was there when I was!)

• Princes Street is one of the main streets in the New Town part of Edinburgh: it’s really just a long street with a lot of shopping if you’re interested in that

• The Princes Street Gardens are right below Princes Street and is a great place to walk around and have a picnic

• Stockbridge is a super cute village-like neighborhood pretty close to Princes Street. There are boutique gift shops and a great little farmers market on Sunday mornings.

• The Royal Botanical Garden is close to Stockbridge and is a great place to walk around (and it’s free!)

• Dean Village is a cute neighborhood near Stockbridge/Princes Street that has a nice walkway near a little stream

• Random, but if you’re a Harry Potter fan there are free tours (you can google it, but they usually meet outside Greyfriars Church) that show locations including the graveyard where Rowling got inspiration for her characters’ names, a coffee shop where she wrote some of the books (The Elephant House), etc.

Hope you enjoy Edinburgh (aka my favorite city ever)!!!!!!!!

When I visited my daughter in the Spring (late May), I just loved walking along the beautiful cherry tree lined walkway through The Meadows, from her apartment to the university, as they were in full bloom!

Please note: I’m not sure if the ‘Royal Mile Market’ is still open as I couldn’t find any recent information about it.

Thanks for all the suggestion but I gotta say that Priscilla gets the gold star - LOL!

Hi Dennise,
Well, thank you!
I’ll make sure to give the gold star to my daughter, hahaha!

Enjoy your trip!

I second Roslyn Chapel, and add Hadrians wall and Melrose Abbey. I did all three on the same day trip.

We enjoyed Craigmillar Castle. There are a couple other abbey ruins near Melrose abbey; Dryburgh Abbey, Jedburgh Abbey.

Thank you sooo much for sending me the link to this. I appreciate it! These suggestions will help me with the planning process. Lots of interesting choices! Thank you, thank you!
Lisa

Rabbies Tours are great! We took a day trip to Loch Loman last October!!👍👍

No reason to rent a car to go to St Andrews. Not sure why that was suggested. The bus is quite convenient. I think St Andrews makes for a great day trip.

Rabbies and HeartofScotland tours will provide you with a lot of options. We're doing both as they have some different day trips and multi-day trips.