Tuesday 
13.6.2017 
20.7km Total: 120.06km
Breakfast wasn't included and since I hauled plenty of readymeals along I might as well get one of those for breakfast.
The kettle belonging to the room was large enough to fit one so how big of a difference can there be between a heater bag and a kettle, hot water is hot water after all?
Success! The bag is so warm I can barely hold on to it and probably contains a more nutritious breakfast than I've had in a long time.
I knew lugging all this food along would pay off.
I wander off to Old Town with my trusty guidebook. My destination is what's called the the royal mile with the castle being the first stop of the day.
I feel a bit cheap but £17 might be the most I've ever paid to get into a tourist attraction.
But still it didn't deter me and not many others either it seemed because the line to the ticket booths was twenty minutes long.
I'm glad I booked the extra night because otherwise I might have been tempted to skip this considering the queue but in retrospect it was worth both the time and the money.
There where so many things to look at that I spent more than two hours in the castle.
In the gift shop there was a whiskey-tasting in progress and who can resist that? Freeeeeeeeeeeeee dram!
One of the more memorably things in the castle apart from the building itself was Mons Meg.
A canon built in 1449 and the largest ever fired in anger in Britain.
The calibre is 510mm (more than half a meter!) and the shot ways 175kgs a piece!
Another canon-related curiosity is that they still fire a gun at the castle at 1PM every day in accordance with a tradition dating all the way back to 1861 and the glory days of Edinburgh port and was used for the ship crew to calibrate their timepieces.
Originally a canon was used for this but nowadays it's a 105mm artillery piece doing the honours.
After viewing everything the castle had to offer I move along to St Giles Cathedral.
It's said that the oldest part of the church can be dated back to the year 1124 but there little to no evidence of that so the official dating is "just" the year 1385.
Luckily there where hosts inside the church and one of them pointed out a carved angel playing the bagpipes in the Thistle chapel, until otherwise convinced I'll assume that's pretty unique as church decorations go.
I mosey along the mile in Old town and go into John Knox house, the oldest preserved settlement in all of Edinburgh dating back to 1490.
John Knox is recognized as the man who led the reformation founder of the Presbyterian church of Scotland.
I hurry along to the very end of the mile and the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the Queens official residence in Scotland and home to Scottish royalty since the 1500:s.
It was a place I definitely didn't want to miss and I make final admission with only minutes to spare.
As usual I was less impressed with contents and more so with the building but I did get a bit curios about some of the carpets.
Some of them are so large they'd be able to cover an entire village in the countryside.
I would love to know how they where made and how long it took to make them.
I'm a complete sucker for weird names so a pub/restaurant called the World's End is something I just can't just walk by.
The name of the pub comes from the time in the 16th century when Edinburgh was a walled city.
The gates to the city were situated right outside the pub and as far as the people of Edinburgh were concerned, the world outside these gates was no longer theirs, hence this was the World's end.
I'm obviously not the only one to fall into this tourist trap so I settle for a Guinness while I wait to be seated and once I get a table I order a Balmoral chicken, chicken with haggis stuffing.
It was really good, and that goes for the stuffing as well although that particular part is better enjoyed without overanalysing the contents.
While I was waiting to be seated I booked myself on a walking tour called the Edinburgh literary pub tour.
It's a two hour walk along the literary world of Edinburgh and the inspiration thereto.
The tour starts with a young male host rambling on about (in a very thick Scottish accent) how the main inspiration of the great authors was nothing more than whoring and alcohol (which in my personal opinion is probably pretty close to the truth) while a female member of the group interrupts and in the Queens English says that this is completely slanderous and all lies.
This shouting-match continues back and forth for a while until the host gives up and invites the woman to co-host the tour so they can settle once and for all who's right.
It obviously all part of the routine and the hosts aren't really just guides but rather (talented) actors who delivers a well rehearsed play.
The fact that we get to moisten our throats at every stop on the tour of course also contribute to everyone having a pretty good time.
As mostly oblivious to the works of the classic Scottish authors I thus had my work cut of for me trying to keep up but this was without a doubt the best guided tour I've ever been on.
Knowledge, warmth and humour delivered in high spirits with a beer or a wee dram in hand it was all in all a spectacular way to spend an evening.
So in a great mood and more than a slight bit intoxicated I wander back to my hotel.
Since it was something they talked about on the tour I noticed the Elephant House café on the way back which apparently is the literary birthplace of Harry Potter since it was there JK Rowling wrote a large part of the series.
And just a little farther down the road I found the statue of Greyfriars Bobby.
The royal mile
Edinburgh castle
The view from the castle
Mons Meg
Burial ground for the dogs of the castle
View from different part of the castle grounds
National War Museum
The Great Hall
The new One o'clock Gun
St. Giles cathedral
The ceiling of the Thistle Chapel in St. Giles, a Scottish order of nights who have taken the national symbol as theirs.
Here's a reasonable explanation to why the Scots choose the thistle as a national symbol.
The angel playing a bagpipe
John Knox House
Holyrood palace (no photography allowed inside).
Holyrood Abbey ruin
The Worlds end and a haggis-stuffed chicken
The literary pub tour, a grand spectacle
The view from the bridge between old and new town with the Scott monument and Balmoral hotel in the background
Greyfriars Bobby statue
Monday 
403km Total: 1983km 
