Day 10-11: A quick trip to Edinburgh
We love trains, and we love Scotland, so we decided to take a quick trip to Edinburgh to experience their Christmas Market and go to “The Cauldron” for some festive potion making. We left London at 8:00am for the 4-1/2 hour train ride from London to Edinburgh. We decided to splurge on First Class tickets so it was a nice comfortable ride there with food service and comfortable seats. When we arrived, we walked to our hotel to check in. I chose the Malmaison because it was close the Christmas Market and I loved that it was a historic building. It was built in 1883 and was a former seaman's mission and at one point a brothel. It became a hotel in 1994, when the Malsaison brand was founded by Scottish hotelier Ken McCulloch. It is named after the Château de Malmaison on the outskirts of Paris, which inspired the design and style of the hotel. We loved it.
Once we were settled in, we took a walk around town to re-familiarize ourselves with the area. Luckily we had spent quite a bit of time walking the streets during our trip to Scotland last year. We found the map to the Christmas Market and decided to find at tavern to grab a bite to eat before our scheduled event at The Cauldron. Unfortunately, because of the holidays, the first few places we stopped at were had no tables available and we had not made a reservation anywhere. We finally found a place, but we were very disappointed in the food.
Finally it was time for our potion making class. According to their website, “Potion Making at The Cauldron Edinburgh is an immersive, drinks-making experience that combines molecular mixology and fun science to bring fantasy worlds to life.” Our potion class included a welcome drink from a unicorn and the brewing of two molecular cocktails. Click on this link if you want to get an idea of what it was like. It turned out to be a really fun experience and our hand-brewed cocktails were actually really good! After our class, we headed back to the hotel and listened to some live music in the bar for bit before calling a day.
Saturday morning we had breakfast at Rabble, a restaurant we had visited on our last trip. We tried some Tattie Scones which are a traditional Scottish breakfast food that are similar to potato pancakes. They reminded me of lefse, just thicker. Then if was off to the Christmas Market. The Edinburgh Christmas Market was spread out across three city blocks and unlike the markets we have been to in London, it was a much more traditional market and had a lot of individual artisans as well as food, drinks and rides. We were very happy we made to trip to see it and were able to pick up some Christmas gifts to bring back with us as well as a few things for ourselves. Soon it was time to head to the train station for our trip back to London. At this point we feel really comfortable with the train and underground systems in London so it was no problem getting to our train. Another 4-1/2 hours and we were back in Covent Garden. We grabbed some pizza at a little Italian restaurant called Belle Italia and now we are settled back into our flat. We only have 5 days left to explore London before we head back to the States to begin our holiday festivities with family and friends, but we still have more to do in our itinerary!