To continue with my love for England, I’m going to take you on our quick trip to Edinburgh.Oh my, this might have been our favorite part of our recent trip. I plan to take some time in the future to talk about other England adventures, but Edinburgh was amazing – a city that didn’t feel like a city.
But…to start, since it was Sunday, we worship
ped in a wonderfully historic (and evangelical) church called All Souls Langham Place.What a wonderful place to visit! Such a warm and friendly church where you could feel the welcome and community of faith. We witnessed a baptism, learned some new songs, and enjoyed a chat with another
visiting American family…and OF COURSE we got to spend time with our new friends Peter and Ilona.
Well, after church we picked up a quick lunch in Kings Cross station and then 
hopped on the train for our 4 hour ride to Edinburgh. It was such an enjoyable trip. On the way up, we all actually got to sit together in a four seat set with a table in between. The scenary was lovely – we saw the English coastline just
before we crossed over from England to Scotland. BEAUTIFUL.
It’s around 5 by the time we get to Edinburgh, so we load up in a taxi, take our bags to our hotel, and walk directly to Arthur’s Seat. But on the way to the hotel, and looming directyl over the train station, is the amazing Edinburgh Castle. Oh my, 
just turning around and seeing this medieval fortress towering above you is impressive enough, but knowing we were going to get to tour it made it even more exciting. Again…photos seem SO small!!
Arthur’s Seat is part of Holyrood Park – 360 acres attached to the Queen’s Scottish residence Holyrood Palace. The hike is probably considered a moderate one, until you get near the top – which is more rigorous – but we didn’t get the opportunity to hike all the way to the ‘Seat’ because of the lateness of the hour. However, we hiked halfway and had an amazing view 
of Edinburgh and even the North Sea. Hailed as one of the possible sites for the legendary Camelot, it immediately becomes a place filled with stories waiting to be told (or that’s how it was for me anyway 😉
I’ve posted a few videos below so you can see our hike in real-tim
e 🙂 Lydia and I had lots of fun creating videos, so if you want to see more – we’ll have links at the end of the post.
After our little hike, we went to grab some DELICIOUS burger at Byron’s. Wow! Yum!! And the hot chocolate was stupendous. Our waiter, Ross, was wonderful – with the endearing mix of Scottish accent and dry humor. Definitely a future character in a book!! (well, his personality paired with a waiter we met the next day…adorable young men who need 
to be in a book)
We then attended a free piano concert inside of St. Giles (the ‘home’ of Presbyterianism). I’ll tell you more about St. Giles in my next post because we actually toured it then, but needless to say, it has a lot of history and fantastic accoustics.
Photos truly do not do this city justice! Beautiful! and OLD!
One of my favorite cities ever! This brings back wonderful memories! Glad you had a great time!