Arthur's Seat
I love Edinburgh. Maybe an unreasonable amount. I've never been in a city I could truthfully say I loved unequivocally before. It's nicely compact due to its geography, has beautiful, ancient buildings, incredible culture (the anticipation for August when the festival season starts in palpable), has easy access to the beach (still on my to-do list) and most importantly, has a huge hill/mountain/extinct volcano for me to climb when I get cabin fever, feel like I need to hike somewhere, stand at the top and say "hmm, yes, good".
For all of July, I sublet a flat that faces Arthur's Seat and in particular the Salisbury Crags. I got in from work repeatedly, utterly shattered, but I'd look out of the window and see the tiny, ant-sized people at the summit and walking the cliffs and convince myself that I'd go hiking the next day.
Well, I finally got myself up there and boy, was it worth it.
Other than taking the steepest route possible by accident (take the regular route via the north side of Holyrood Park like a normal human), I'd put it as a must-do for anyone heading to Edinburgh. 360 degree view of all of city? Yes please.
You can see everything from Edinburgh Castle (featuring stands for the Edinburgh Tattoo)...
...to Calton Hill...
...to St Margaret's Loch, Leith and the Firth of Forth.
The name Arthur's Seat is pretty unusual and its etymology is actually thought to come from King Arthur, as a possible location for Camelot... Whether or not that's true is something else entirely though. Lots of geographical features are named after King Arthur but if you want some more reliable history, you can find the ruin of St Anthony's Chapel on the sensible route to the summit. Try doing what I did and look very interested in the ruins as you kick yourself for having practically scaled the southern side of Arthur's Seat when you could have taken a gentle(ish) slope to the top... It was still worth it.
A bit of housekeeping now. I'm sorry for being atrocious at updating! Work has certainly been keeping me busy but it has also been handing me things to write about and photograph so my to-do list has just been steadily growing. I'm all moved into my new flat now so things will be back to normal ASAP! Promise!
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