On the last Monday of July, the only thing that stood between me and Scotland was a six-hour train journey. I love travelling by train – it’s relaxing, usually comes with a pretty view from the window, and I don’t have to worry about the train falling out of the sky. I was meeting my best friend, Alex, in Edinburgh (on account of her travelling from Leeds) and I was rather envious of the fact that her journey was only about three hours long. As I lugged my suitcase up the stairs of my local station, I realised I’d made the same mistake that I’d made so many times before – I had overpacked. Nonetheless, I boarded my train and sped up to St Pancras, where I would grab a Pret (obviously) and make the novel one-minute walk to Kings Cross.

It was a beautiful day in London. Sometimes it feels like London has its own weather patterns – I’d left Surrey with grey skies and walked out into a warm and busy city, both me and the crowd bustling with anticipation. I wanted to stop and soak it in, my train wasn’t for another half hour, but instead I dragged myself into Kings Cross to wait in front of the plethora of announcement boards. When the platform was finally announced, the crowd surged forward as we raced to our already-assigned seats. I’d made it onto the train and when I got off, I’d be in a different country.

The journey itself was pretty uneventful, and aside from some obnoxious and arguably unhygienic passengers, I remained relaxed and rather bored. The furthest I’d ever been in the UK was Yorkshire, so by the time I was passing through Newcastle everything felt very alien to me. I passed field upon field, noticing tiny figures – some on bicycles – weaving their way through the countryside, just as I was. I often wish I could stop the train and get off in the middle of nowhere – it always looks so peaceful.

When I finally pulled in to Edinburgh station, I watched out the window in the hopes that Alex was waiting on the platform for me. I spotted her pretty quickly – tiny, fashionable, and her head buried in a book. I knew in that moment that the time we’d spend here would weave into the tapestry of our friendship.

In hindsight, walking to the airbnb with heavy suitcases in a hill-clad city probably wasn’t the brightest idea, but we’d made it to Edinburgh and nothing could dampen our spirits. Our apartment was on the ground floor of a listed building and it felt like something out of a coming-of-age film – it was cute, stylish, and we even had our own secret garden off the bedroom.

After a well needed sofa crash and a mooch around the local corner shop, we cracked open a £7 bottle of vino and started getting ready for dinner. Alex and I have been friends for nearly eight years, but we haven’t actually lived in the same county for the last six of them. We really only get to spend quality time with eachother roughly twice a year, and so it always feels so special when we’re together. We’re the queens of mini holidays – squeezing 2 or 3 night stays wherever we can, and it’s something we’ve managed to do most summers without fail. It’s fascinating watching each other grow up – being 22-years-old and laughing about the fact that we thought we had it all figured out at 16. The weather was warmer than we’d expected and so we optioned many outfits as my Edinburgh playlist floated through the apartment.

Dinner that night was the 5 course vegetarian ‘taste of Scotland’ tasting menu at this sweet little restaurant called The Cellar Door, approximately two minutes walk from our place. We were staying in the Old Town, so the streets were cobbled and the buildings had stood the test of time – it was like stepping into a fairytale. The restaurant was in an old wine cellar, and so we entered at street level and continued downstairs until we sat underneath the hum of Edinburgh, alive with the evening crowd. I was completely enamoured by the food, the atmosphere and the lovely staff. Afterwards, we were that happy kind of tired where we could sit and talk forever, but also knew that we’d be asleep as soon as our heads hit the pillow.

I knew that our short stay in Edinburgh meant we really had to make the most of the time we had – I’m talking a thought out plan for the morning, afternoon and evening – which required an early wake-up. By early, I mean about 8.30am, which is second nature to Alex but something I struggle with a little more. I can’t even count the mornings i’ve woken up to find that Alex has been awake since 6.30am, already back from a run, and on her second bowl of cereal (which she stated recently is her absolute favourite meal, ever). Nonetheless, I arose, I ate, I showered, and we were out the door by about 10.30.

It was our first full day, and the fresh air felt good as it washed over my weary eyes. Edinburgh Castle stands at the top of the Royal Mile, and so we figured we’d head up that way to take a look. Foolishly, we’d not thought about booking ahead, and tickets to go inside the castle were completely booked up for our entire trip, so staring longingly at the castle walls would have to do. I suppose I thought that Edinburgh would be relatively quiet, given the state of travel at the moment, but I was very wrong. It wasn’t even 11am and the Mile was absolutely filled with people – I can’t imagine what it’s like in normal times. There was something so lovely about it, though, to be amongst a whole crowd of excited people, likening Edinburgh to a mythical town set far back in the past. St Giles’ Cathedral sat quietly overlooking the street, and Alex and I – both partial to a cathedral – had a look inside. We were used to escaping holiday heat by ducking inside a church or cathedral, usually so much cooler than outside, but St Giles’ was the opposite. It was a little too warm (which makes sense because Edinburgh gets very cold) but beautiful all the same. I’ve always admired the silence inside such grand structures – a hundred heads walking around, acknowledging, thinking, and not talking.

Refreshed from the peace of the cathedral, we powered up to the top of the Mile, noting a cafe on the way that we would return to for lunch. Edinburgh Castle was impressive, and we gazed at it for quite some time, realising that a ticket inside really would show you a whole lot of stuff. The city sprawled out around us as the castle, embedded into the hill, stood proudly over it. It was quite a sight. As were the hordes of people with selfie sticks.

After a delicious lunch (we quite quickly realised food would be a huge part of this trip), a lovely iced coffee and too long deciding which celtic ring to buy – we headed home for a quick rest stop before our afternoon activity: The National Museum of Scotland.

Never have I ever set foot inside a museum with such an eclectic mixture of exhibits. Set over 3 floors with rooms coming off of a beautiful atrium with a glass roof, you could literally spend hours in there. One minute Alex and I were marvelling at viking treasure and the next we were arguing about whether the giant snakes were real and stuffed, or replicas made of plastic. I’m pretty sure they were real, though Alex will disagree. Going to a museum really reminds me of being a child – a school trip or a day out with my mum – there’s something so enchanting about spending a few hours learning about parts of history you would have otherwise never come across. Having had uni work hanging over me for so long, I was suddenly aware of how nice it was to be able to do this with my best friend – walking around a museum in Scotland at snails pace, laughing and chatting about nothing and everything all at once.

Dinner that evening was a place called Ting Thai Caravan – delicious and fast, with ridiculously large portions. When I say the food was fast, I’m not exaggerating. I think we were in and out of there in about 35 minutes, and so it felt a little weird to head home at the ripe hour of 7.30pm – thus we had to improvise another evening activity. Because of the restrictions in Edinburgh in July, our dream of finding a tiny pub with live music was unfulfillable – so instead we hunted for a cool bar with a good vibe. It was a pleasantly warm evening once again, so despite walking around in circles for quite a while, we had a good time exploring. Having found what we considered a ‘cool’ bar with a ‘good’ vibe, we sat down, ordered an overpriced drink & instantly regretted our decision when EastEnders started playing on the large TV screen hanging above the tables. We concluded it was going to be an early night after all.

Our second and final full day came with a rainy morning and a slight chill, but it didn’t matter because brunch was on the cards. Venturing out of our Old Town bubble, we braved the walk to the New Town, which momentarily snapped us out of our cobbled-street-fairytale. We awkwardly arrived at the little cafe – Fortuna – slightly too soon after breakfast and slightly too early for lunch, but it was cute and warm, so we sat down anyway.

We let the morning float by as we sat there talking in the window booth, watching as a woman – who had knowingly ordered a bowl of fruit – complain that she didn’t like bananas after they brought the food over to her. I felt too embarrassed to ask for ketchup with my scrambled eggs and smoked salmon toast, so I fetched an emergency ketchup sachet from my bag instead, delighted that I actually had one, but much to Alex’s dismay.

Having never really considered Edinburgh’s location on the map, other than it being very high up, I was surprised to read that it was actually home to a beach. We had Scottish National Portrait museum tickets for the afternoon, but a few hours to kill before then and so we decided: beach we must. We worked out that there was a bus that would take us right to the beach front, and the bus stop was seemingly a 15 minute walk from the cafe. We set off at a relaxed pace, each with an AirPod in one ear, listening to Gaslighter by The Chicks and pretending that the people around us were walking to the beat of the song.

It was all a little too late when we realised the bus stop was further than we thought, and our bus was in leaving in about 5 minutes. I don’t think I’ve ever speed-walked for so long in one go. Nonetheless, we made ir just in time, too full from brunch and slightly sweaty.

A gloomy sky, with patches of blue, hung above the beach as we arrived. We passed the time at a cafe, sipping hot coffee and trying our best to avoid the puddle around our table. The vast stretch of damp sand was mostly empty, apart from a few people battling against the wind with their dogs, but everyone seemed happy. We were happy too.

We met the most delightful lady in a gift shop on a road behind the beach, and spoke to her for about ten minutes. She asked me where I was from and I said “Surrey”, and then she repeated “Where are you from?” and I said “Oh, sorry, I said ‘Surrey’ but it sounds like ‘sorry'” and she said “Oh sorry, Surrey! I see!”. I ended up buying a tiny tartan hip flask on a keyring for my brother.

By the time we were on the bus back to the city, we were beginning to hit a bit of a wall. The bus was making a peculiar noise – though I can’t actually recall what the noise was anymore – and we knew we had two activities left to conquer that day. The first was the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, and the second was the climb to the top of Arthur’s seat. The latter arguably a much bigger activity than the former. Hopping off the bus near the gallery, we sat in Princes Street Gardens and mustered up our energy for a few minutes. The sky was beginning to clear and a beautiful day was breaking through – we let the sun fall over our bodies and recharge us from the ground up.

The gallery was peaceful, just as the museum had been, and was home to hundreds of portraits and landscapes, mounted on deep red walls. Alex seemed to prefer the grittier paintings – the ones that told stories of struggle and misfortune, whilst I was more taken by the dream-like landscapes that imagined grand and vast places. I wonder if our different degrees, History and English respectively, had anything to do with it.

When we eventually arrived back at our apartment, muttering vague plans about what we should do for dinner, fatigue had finally taken a grasp of us. Alex fell asleep on the sofa while I sat there, wishing I could fall asleep on the sofa. Unfortunately, I’ve never been able to nap, it doesn’t seem to be a skill that I possess. Instead I just sat there in a dreamy lull, letting the minutes roll by. After some time had passed, the thought of climbing to the tallest point in Edinburgh felt like an unachievable dream. The problem was, you can’t exactly come back from visiting Edinburgh and say ‘we couldn’t really be bothered to do Arthur’s seat’. Luckily, we had leftovers in the fridge from our Thai food the night before, so I woke Alex, we fuelled up, got a grip, and headed out the door for our final adventure.

I’d like to pretend that the walk up to Arthur’s seat was as breezy for me as it was for Alex. Wearing thick denim jeans and sporting my tote bag with a full chilly’s bottle inside, I followed Alex as she wove easily through the hills. I always feel clumsy when I’m climbing up something, as though my feet don’t want to cooperate with me, making me wish, as ever, that I exercised a bit more. Holyrood Park – where Arthur’s Seat is located – was so vast and beautiful that I was almost overwhelmed with it. I knew that no picture could capture the depth of what I was seeing and feeling, and I tried desperately to note every detail as it passed me by. From above, Alex and I would have been minuscule figures, snaking our way through the decorated landscape.

When it got really steep, I told Alex I was probably going to die. For some reason she didn’t believe me, and kept me moving until we reached the top. Despite the clear and calm evening down below us, the top of Arthur’s Seat was surprisingly windy, and I genuinely considered whether it was possible for us to be blown clear away. It’s suffice to say that we held our ground, but I wasn’t convinced that we would.

Looking out across Edinburgh, I knew we’d really only seen a fraction of the city. There were cobbled alleyways that we hadn’t walked down, tiny churches we’d probably never visit, shops that had been in the hands of the same families for decades, and people, people, people. I think it’s quite normal to feel nostalgia for something in the same breath that you’re experiencing it, knowing that it will slip away slowly, regardless of what you do. I felt a bit like that, standing at Arthur’s Seat with my best friend by my side. I considered that we might never find ourselves up here together again, or if we did we’d be older and changed, but I liked the fact that part of our friendship, the girls we were at 22, would remain there, etched into the hillside.