After a delicious breakfast¹with our B&B host, who turned out to be a furniture and clock restorer in his spare time and an all-around swell chap, we packed up our Astra and headed off to York. That’s about the time my day started to go downhill.

See, York would be a great place, a charming little medieval gem nestled into England’s eastern countryside, if everyone else on the blasted planet didn’t know that it was a charming little medieval gem. My appreciation of the ancient fort smack in the middle of town is somehow lessened every minute my photo of it has to wait for the cretin who’s lived long enough to earn the right to not know how to use his camera.

Perhaps the little city’s biggest problem is that it has too much tourism list-checking potential. You’ve got York Minster for your old church enthusiasts²), The Shambles for your medieval-market-cum-chic-boutique shoppers, Clifford’s Tower for your history buffs, some abbey ruins for your goths and braver emo kids, and JORVIK Viking Center for your clueless parents who think Vikings might as well be pirates and want some edutainment for their tweenage scrubs³. The choices go on and on.

As you might have guessed, “near other people” is not how I’d choose to spend a vacation, so I spent the day vacillating between annoyance and aggravation, with a little disaffection mixed in for good measure. Eventually, when we’d experienced just enough timeless architecture and quaintness that we thought our little hearts would burst for joy, we headed off to our next overnight stop – Edinburgh, Scotland.

Act 2: Edinburgh – putting the VAT to good use

I’m not sure who was the first person to tell us that we would be visiting the city of Edinburgh smack in the middle of a large-scale modernization process that would render many of its central roads completely unusable and reroute all well-intentioned vehicles to bizarre locales via even stranger traffic patterns…but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t our travel agent. They’re building a city-wide tram system, which I’m sure is great for the locals, but was somewhat less than great for us and our two relevant road maps – one of the entire United Kingdom, and one of a roughly four square block area surrounding our hotel.

Also, our unique⁴ itinerary meant that many of our days would be spent seeing as many sights as we could wring out of our current locale, and the following evenings would be spent driving to the next city. When you’re trying to do as much as possible, your days tend to run long, which ended up putting us at many of our destinations after 10 PM – in this case, we got to Edinburgh closer to 11. It was a little late for check-in, but we hoped for the best.

We continued to hope for the best as we drove circles around the city center, trying in vain to hone in on our destination from construction-battered thoroughfares and obscure side roads alike, our current road’s name changing with what seemed like every passing block. In fact, when we finally did locate our hotel 45 minutes later – a mostly unsigned section of otherwise residential townhouses in a quiet part of downtown – it turned out to be on a street that actually did change its name three times in one block. Luckily, we were able to rouse the night clerk from what I’m sure was an otherwise pleasant slumber and check in. I carried our bags upstairs while Amy attempted to pay for overnight street parking. That’s a story you’ll have to get from her, but the best I could tell from her harried summary, it involved a combination of calculus and a special decoder ring.

The hotel being, as I mentioned, in a residential area meant that it was small (9 rooms, if I remember correctly), but it still managed to be nicely appointed. The only downsides were an immovable shower head and a toilet that needed priming – pump, pump, flush, and you were usually fine.

After using said bathroom facilities the next morning, we wolfed down another delicious restaurant-style breakfast and headed out on the town. The tram work really did destroy the charm of most of the central shopping district; luckily, I’d rather be caught dead than in the shopping district⁵. All the good stuff’s at the top of a hill (smack in the middle of the town) with Edinburgh Castle. Tourist congestion does, of course, increase the closer you get to the castle itself, but there’s no getting around that – there are some amazing views and a ton of history to be had up there.

While visiting Edinburgh Castle, don’t be surprised if you experience 3 seasons in 1 day – it’s a local phenomenon known as “Scotland”. I think it’s something in the whisky. The sky can cloud over and pour down rain in a matter of minutes; the rain will then slow to a drizzle, soon giving way to a warm, sunny day. Watch in wonder as flowers then bloom before your very eyes⁶.

Once you’re done with the castle proper, head out the gates and down the Royal Mile for some – what else – wonderful little shops. At least, there must be some wonderful little ones mixed in with the morass of brightly-colored, guadily-decorated tourist bait, and I’m trying out this new thing where I give cities the benefit of the doubt⁷. At least you’ll have pretty stone buildings to look at while you’re passing prestigious establishments like the “Museum of Childhood” (I took the hit for you on this one – don’t waste your time).

The whirlwind of the last several days had left us worn out, so after several hours of wandering the Castle’s surroundings, we headed back to the hotel for an afternoon nap. A couple hours later, we woke up hungry, so we decided to find the nearest tasty-looking restaurant and eventually settled on a little place called the Grosvenor. Nestled cozily into a row of storefronts, I knew this place would be a winner when I was accosted outside the pub by a cheerful drunk on the phone trying to tell his mates where to find him:

“Hey–’Ey! Whassis place called?”

“…Huh?”

“‘is place. How d’you pruhnouse it?”

(Caught sufficiently off-guard, and actually seeing the name for the first time myself) “Umm…’Gross-ve-nur’?”

“Sa’it again?”

“…’Gross-ve-nur’? I’m not all that sure.”

(into the phone) “See? ‘Grudveshuh’. Noone can…iss right over…”

My usefulness clearly having expired, we left our new friend to his deliberations and went inside. A Beatles cover band (shocking, I know) was getting ready to play, so the place was relatively full, but we managed to find a table near the back. We settled in and, after our usual menu indecisiveness, decided on our dinner selections for the evening. I left A at the table while I went up to the bar to order.

This is when I was reminded that we were in the UK. It was after 6, so of course the kitchen was closed. If they served food to absorb all the alcohol everyone was drinking, how could their full house of patrons be expected to stay long enough to hear the cover band’s version of Paperback Writer at the end of their mediocre set? We walked down the street to a grocery store, picked up some sandwiches, and headed back to the hotel.

And the morning and the evening were the…wait a minute. On second thought, we were actually in Edinburgh for two days. So, um, stretch that post-York part out a bit, add an extra breakfast and a visit to Holyrood House in there somewhere, and you’ll have a semi-accurate picture of our time in the Scottish capital. If you’re concerned enough about chronological specificity that this bothers you, go watch a congressional hearing or something. They tend to be pretty picky about getting to the bottom of cause-and-effect timelines, and they’re great with details. You’ll fit right in.

1. Have I mentioned that just about every breakfast we had in the UK was fantastic? Even in London, where I expected the least amenities, the continental breakfast meant all-you-can-eat cereal/muesli, juice, and toast, along with some eggs, potatoes, sausage/bacon, beans, tomatoes, and fruit. I ate like a Bactrian camel (that’s the one with two humps for storing fat, just so we’re clear) each morning, and I loved every minute of it. [↩]
2. (and your people who like to climb narrow stairways so they can marvel at how narrow they are [↩]
3. I, of course, refused to go inside, but the best I could tell was that the whole establishment was a shameless profiteering abomination that Erik the Red would have been happy to loot and subsequently raze [↩]
4. read: insane [↩]
5. Unluckily, the UK has adapted to this aversion – each major city has approximately 12 shopping districts, the nearest one never more than 2 miles away, no matter where you are. [↩]
6. Again, some of that may have been the whisky. [↩]
7. It doesn’t usually do much to change my final conclusion, but at least it reduces my (physical) headache count for the day. [↩]