Being an international jet setter, Zev insisted on visiting 2 continents during his winter holiday. We got home from the US on Tuesday, had a nice long sleep and woke up bright and early to catch our train to Scotland. As usual, Zevry was a champion traveler, and was generally really good on both 5 hour train rides.

As you get close to Scotland, the scenery from the train is spectacular – lots of farms and rolling hills which give way to cliffs and an amazing view of the North Sea.

Having just flown 10 hours on a plane, I can say there are definite ups and downs to train travel. On the plus side, it is very easy to board – no security checks or passport control if you travel in country (England and Scotland reciprocate so even though it is a different country you don’t have to fuss with that stuff), you could technically get off at any stop, you have nice views and an onboard restaurant. The downside is that it can be a lot more cramped. We took the Eurostar to Paris last year and it was way more roomy than this train, but since our fare to Scotland was 19 GBP, compared to 200GBP to Paris I guess maybe I shouldn’t complain.
We arrived in Edinburgh in the early evening and checked into our hotel, which was actually a 2 bedroom apartment. Michael took good care of us and got us an extra nice place since it was our first family hotel holiday. I definitely recommend the Holyrood Aparthotel – the service and accommodations were great and you can get much better rates than they have advertised if you shop around a bit.

Edinburgh is a picturesque old city. It is very small – you can get just about anywhere is 15-20 minutes on foot. That evening we went to David Bann restaurant where we had an amazing meal. I had heard good things about the place and it didn’t disappoint us, then we looked at silly souvenirs along the Royal Mile. The next morning, we slept in late, had a decent lunch at Henderson‘s, another vegetarian place, then headed to the Edinburgh Castle for our day’s activity. The castle has great views of the city and is filled with history and some really interesting stonework, but I am not so much into military history which is what most of the contents of the castle involved. But it is definitely worth seeing! We spent the rest of the day wandering through the Christmas Market (which was lame) and taking some cool night photos of the castle. The sun sets at about 3:40pm, so our night photos were actually late afternoon photos… We finished off the night with a walk along the Royal Mile and a search for this certain hot chocolate place which, unbeknownst to us, has closed. Zev kept us entertained by screaming until about 2:30am. Poor little guy has been having some intestinal issues as a result of a virus and has had a couple really bad nights. He gets so sad and screams and whimpers. I finally soothed him by running the kitchen sink, which distracted him enough that he was able to calm down and fall asleep. After another late morning, we headed out and climbed an extinct volcano, Arthur’s Seat. The views were spectacular, though the trek was a bit slippery. Of course I was worried about tripping falling with the baby, but Michael made it up and back down again with the baby, and they’re both still relatively unscathed. At the top. a mother and daughter from Spain dubbed Zev Adventure Baby, and this is new title. Lunch at The Engine Shed was a bit disappointing, though we met a very nice couple and their 5 month old twins. The food was acceptable but boring and bland. After lunch we wandered through the city, stopping at St Giles Cathedral and then for hot chocolate at Chocolate Soup. Dinner at Black Bos was lovely – good food, decent service, and capped off our trip quite nicely.

It was great to get back to London. I think Zev really missed his routine, especially being ill. And now we just settle back into life here and wait for our Christmas visitors to arrive!