We took the train to Edinburgh from London, a pleasant five hour trip through the green English countryside and then along the southeast coast of Scotland. Edinburgh is an old city with a medieval castle dominating the downtown skyline, high on the top of a volcanic crag. We’ll talk more about the old city in a subsequent blog post but this post covers our new neighborhood and some of the things we have discovered there. As always in our travels, the most interesting things are the little things.
As the population of Edinburgh expanded in the 18th century the leaders planned a new section of the city to the north of the castle called New Town. Beautiful Georgian architecture and small parks dominate New Town, and many people consider it to be the most beautiful part of the city. Our apartment is in the northern part of the new area, on Elm Row in the Leith Walk district just to the north of Calton Hill (for those of you who may know Edinburgh). Our building was built around 1820 and, of course, has been remodeled with all the modern conveniences such as indoor plumbing and wifi.
Our apartment is below street level, with a small courtyard at the entrance and another small courtyard in the back. Semi-basement apartments are common in older buildings throughout the UK, and they are very pleasant. Our location is perfect – off the beaten tourist path but close to anything we might want to see. About a dozen bus lines stop right at our corner.
We have enjoyed exploring our neighborhood and seeing how things are done in Scotland. The photos below show some scenes in our neighborhood. Click on the first photo to begin the slide show.
