Oh, Scotland. {Part 1}

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways…” (Elizabeth B. Browning)

When Jeremy and I began planning for Germany, we thought a great way to kick off our adventure would be a small vacation beforehand. A heads up to anyone that moves abroad…it involves a lot of planning and preparation!! (Duh, right?) There is not only tons of prep and planning beforehand but just as much, if not more, after you arrive to your new destination…I’ll save that for another post 😉 We knew that once we actually got to Germany there would be a whole host of these additional requirements to do right away, so we both agreed that a little vacation break between the two moves would be beneficial. It was the BEST decision. Seriously. This break allowed us to get ourselves back to neutral and to ease into our move oversees.

We were moving in early January, so we decided to look into options for going a little early to make a pit stop and celebrate New Years abroad. We quickly came up with a short list of possible places in Europe that all held a big New Years Eve celebration. This list included: London, Paris and Edinburgh, Scotland. We ultimately settled on Scotland because it seemed the most unique option of the three and a place we might not get to visit as much as the others. And boy, am I SO glad we chose Scotland!

Our sweet neighbors in Carlsbad highly recommended using Airbnb when traveling, and we wanted to give it a try. We booked an amazing flat in the Grassmarket area of old town Edinburgh, right off the Royal Mile. We could not have been more pleased with our accommodation. It was in the perfect location (with views of the Edinburgh Castle!) to see all the main attractions as well as the locations for the New Years celebrations.  We stayed in a lovely one bedroom flat, complete with a full kitchen, for cheaper than the price of a hotel room!  Hard to beat. Below is (unfortunately) the only picture we took of our place, but it gives a good feel of the entire apartment…so cozy!

Below is our view of the Edinburgh castle right outside our door…I really could not rave about this place more. It was perfect!

The first couple of days that we arrived were spent touring around, sticking mostly to the Edinburgh Castle and the connecting Royal Mile that were chalk full of amazing sights.

This picture below makes me laugh…the two next to us are creating the same picture… in the same outfit… with the same pose.

Scotland’s New Year’s Celebration called Hogmanay was both equally tremendous and astonishing. The festival lasted a total of three days. It first began on December 30th with a longstanding tradition called the Torchlight Processional. Roughly 30,000 people lined the Royal Mile in old town Ediburgh with torches in hand, walking towards the “Son et Lumiére” Finale held on Calton Hill which overlooks much of Edinburgh. The firework show at Calton Hill was incredible and one of the best I have probably every seen first hand. This was largely due to the combination of 1. We were in freaking Scotland! 2. We were on a high hill overlooking the night skyline with thousands of people holding torchlights and 3. We were so close to the actual fireworks display.  These videos are a fairly good representation of the event.

Check back soon to see more pictures and to hear about our actual New Years adventure and remaining time in Edinburgh, Scotland.

XO