Edinburgh & Courtyard Marriott
A fairly quick and 20 GBP car ride into the city put us out at the door of the Courtyard Marriott. Found out during check in that this was only a few months old. The facade is great and looks like the surrounding stone buildings but the inside felt very nice and much more upscale than I would have thought, not clinical or sterile at all.
I forgot to take a pic of the room, but we had a decent size with 2 double beds at the back of the hotel that faced the hill. Got welcome drink vouchers, breakfast had no discount but it was only 10 GBP.
We walked around a bit and went to Harvey Nichols so I could get some cheaper than in the US jacket from Stone Island. We had an escape room game scheduled so we grabbed dinner at The Guildford Arms in the upstairs overlooking the bar.
I always made fun of my friend for these escape games thinking they were dumb. Well an hour at Escape Hour Edinburgh and I had a blast! We did the "diamond heist" and were able to get it with 3 minutes to spare.
We had no real plans other than the escape room and the next evening doing The Scotish Whiskey Experience tour. That meant lots of wandering around in general directions.
Neither of us felt the need to pay to go into the castle which was mobbed with tourist and had the stands set up for the big bagpipe concert called The Tattoo (I guess?).
"Let's send a picture to my Mom."
Haggis, Neeps & Tatties
Got 3 of these over the trip. I normally drink iced americano because I don't like the aftertaste of cold brew but this was great.
It was my birthday so we went to the the Platinum tour at the Whiskey Experience. But before that we went to Bramble for a pre-drink. All artisanal cocktails, mine with the bee pollen and ash was amazing.
We showed up a little early so we went downstairs to Amber to have a whiskey. I had been wanting to try this one since I saw a girl on Vice go to the distillery.
It's about 90 min long, you go on this barrel ride talking about how it is made and then you watch a video about the regions, go into a sample room and taste 3, go into the giant collection for a 4th and finally at the bar taste a final 5th. They had set the tastings up for a full house but about 4 people didn't show...which meant we swipped a few extras and had a decent buzz.
We walked around for a few minutes trying to find food at 8:30 which without a reservation was hard. El Mariachi welcomed us, some sangria and enchiladas hit the spot. Not the best Mexican food but for someone who eats it 3-4x a week I can quickly go through withdrawls.
To finish off my birthday we stopped by one of the three gay bars next to the hotel. Yes, this is the name of Bette Midler's role in Beaches!
An absolutely beautiful city. Weather was hit or miss, had a great time and glad we picked 2 of the 3 days here instead of swapping with Glasgow.