Travel Diaries: England & Scotland 2015 (2) – Hadrian’s Wall, Chester’s Fort &Edinburgh

And to England as well, but oh well, it’s the Scotland bit I was most excited about 🙂 On our second day, we started out at the YHA Youth Hostel Once Brewed, we admired Hadrian’s Wall, we went to visit Chester’s Fort and we ended up in Edinburgh, camping not too far from the city!

I’m absolutely not sure whether anybody cares about what I did while on this holiday, but I know at least one friend asked, so this seemed like an easy way to get it all down at once (that is to say, at once: we did quite a lot, so I’ll be dividing this into sections of one or two days, depending on how much we did on those days 🙂 )

The second day came bright and early – too bright, and too early. While getting dressed, we had a lovely view over the hills, we could see tiny cars driving down the road across the valley, in short: it was rather a perfect way to wake up. As soon as we’d gotten all of our stuff together, we went back to the lounge, where we got back up to speed with the rest of the world, and I managed to book us a pitch to put up our tent for that night.

Around 10h, we left the hostel and drove to the nearest stop at Hadrian’s Wall, where we had breakfast. We then drove on to the beginning of a walk, where we spend almost 1h30 enjoying the sun, the hills, the fresh air, and the exercise. Our next stop was Chester’s Fort, where you can still see the ruins of both the Roman Fort and of the thermae – I’d already been there the year before, but even on a second visit, I found the sites to be quite impressive. The river which still flows right next to the thermae is just another asset to this beautiful place – definitely a recommendation to anybody who’s planning on visiting Hadrian’s Wall!

Edinburgh in the early evening

After having a small snack, we got back into the car, and drove up to Edinburgh. After parking the car, we went to the nearest Starbucks so that we could get some actual food (crackers are fun and all, but they don’t actually fill you up all that well) and so that I could check our booking had been confirmed. Once all that was settled, we took the long way round (for anybody who’s ever been to Edinburgh: when you leave the historic centre, you cross the railway either over a bridge, or down below – we did down below) and went looking for a comic shop we wanted to visit. Although it took us a while, we eventually managed to get there, and spent half an hour happily browsing the shelves (and spending slightly too much money – this will become a recurring theme). We then just walked down one of the main roads, soaking in the last bits of sun (it’d been cloudy earlier, and rain was predicted for the following day).

Eventually, we got the car and went to our sleeping place, Linwater Caravan Park. Now this place is another definite recommendation – the pitch was pretty cheap, the welcome was warm, and it’s only a half an hour drive from Edinburgh, so perfect for visiting Edinburgh and its surroundings. Once we got there, we got installed and ordered Chinese food (I promise you this seemed like a very logical sequence at the time!) As it was already starting to get dark, we soon got into the tent and after getting and eating the food, we figured we’d go to bed early – as in: 21h-ish (way early for all of us).