A Festive Day In Edinburgh

I know the Christmas festivities are well and truly over but I had wanted to create a blog post about one of my favourite days in December (mostly for myself so that in years to come I could look back at the post and be reminded of what a great day it was 😄 ). My intention had been to post this at the end of December but I never got round to it so I'm doing it now as one last remembrance to Christmas 2019.

I took a trip into Scotland's capital with three of my closest friends. We went to have a fun festive day/night and so to make the most of the chance to spend time together where all of us were free to do so, we booked into a hotel so that we could spend more time in Edinburgh. The hotel we stayed in was the Market Street Hotel and it was one of the nicest hotels I've ever been to (I haven't stayed in too many hotels in my lifetime so maybe this was actually an average hotel, but for me it was quite grand😄). Upon arrival we were given a complementary glass of champagne and all of the hotel staff were so friendly and welcoming.

After spending a little time putting our stuff into our hotel rooms and having little explores around the rooms, we then decided we would get some Christmas shopping done first before going to the actual markets. I'm not always the biggest fan of shopping trips - I always look forward to going on them but then when I'm actually out the quality of the trip usually always depends how I'm feeling at the time and how busy places are - however I'm always up for shopping trips with my friends and I enjoy being out with them, especially in December where everywhere is decorated to the max. It always seems like shopping centres try to outdo one another when it comes to decorating but I love it because  it means everywhere feels really festive and magical.

After wandering around many of the shops, we then headed to the markets. I had thought it was going to be really busy as on the day we went, it was five days until Christmas so I was anticipating crowds of people. Luckily this actually wasn't the case. It was busy-ish, but nothing like what I had thought which was good. We went around all the cute little stalls and got some food. All the while Christmas music played and it felt like being on the set of a Hallmark Christmas movie.

We went to one of the little bars at the market, got some drinks and listened to some live music from a man playing his guitar on a little stage that was set up. It felt so cozy, there was fairy lights hanging everywhere on the roof and heaters dotted about. It was a chance for us to have a proper little sit down after all the walking we had done during the day. 

We then decided back to the hotel to relax before heading back out. We all piled into the one room, found a space on the bed, put on the TV to a nature documentary station, and ended up having a nap because we're all little grannies at heart😄.

Once we had all woken up again, we went back out to the markets because it was fully dark by this point and we had wanted to walk around the markets at night to see all of the lights. We ended up not staying out for too long because it had started to rain pretty heavily by this point - still had fun though.

We decided to go to the rooftop bar at the hotel (sitting in the inside part though) and ordered some food and drinks and just sat and chatted and laughed. It was so a great end to the day.

The next morning, after we had checked out of the hotel, we went out for breakfast. We went to a little vegetarian/vegan restaurant/cafe called Hendersons. I got the pancakes with a hot chocolate and it was so good, definitely recommend  - you don't even need to be vegetarian/vegan to enjoy the food here. The place itself was so cute and cosy.

It was such a great little trip and it was so good to see and catch up with my friends after having not been able to see each other for ages due to uni/work. I'm really hoping to go on more short city breaks with friends this year. I want to try and spend any time possible with them. We're at that age where finding the time where we're free at the same time is pretty difficult so I'd love to meet up whenever possible.

So that's it for Christmas posts for the time being. 

Bye for now, xo