24/01/25 - 5 Days in Edinburgh Pubs

Too Many to Blog, A Photo-Journal

New Good Beer Guide Tick - The Black Cat - Rose Street

First of two University Pubs - Cambridge Bar

Watching the detectives, at the Oxford Bar

Monday, a great day for photos at the Oxford Bar

A must visit classic - the Bow Bar

Where we watched a punter have a £62 Whisky.  You do get 35ml

The Blue Blazer - Laid Back Jazz.  A super place to drink

Now in the Good Beer Guide, Ryries Bar at the Haymarket

A rare seat at the Jolly Judge

Hidden gem, but once found, cannot be ignored. The Halfway House.

Mrs M Confused by the Guildford Arms revolving door....

.....Which has the best kept beer in Edinburgh

Dirty Dicks - a Grotto.  Particularly atmospheric at night 

Reinforcements arrive, with their own google maps saved pubs. Kays Bar it is!

Storm Eyowyn gets us a booth at the Cafe Royal....

.... for drinking in an art museum 

After a Burns Dinner, the final pub - the Doric

Entertained by folkies, whilst we drink ever more expensive whisky. But never £62 whisky

23/01/25 - Portobello - Edinburgh by the Sea

A Pub Crawl without the Pubs

Another walk from Bob Steel's CAMRA Pub Walks In Edinburgh.

Mrs M is never going to pass up the opportunity for a coastal walk. And Portobello offers this in spades. A promenade. Lapping Waves. Golden Sands. Beachside Volleyball nets. Sea Bathers. We could be in the Med. If it was about 20 degrees warmer.

She almost knocked the Adventure Lab Geocaching on the head.

The Seaside in Winter

As we were here for breakfast (Haggis stacks needed to be photographed) - we were always going to be too early for the pubs. Bob recommended four - the Dlariada and Three Monkeys long closed. The Omelie Tavern and Espy remain for another day.

Maybe we will be back for a summer's day.

Civilisation returned to by heading inland along Brunstane Burn.

Walking along water

Walk Details

Distance - 3 Miles

Geocaches - 2 and 10 ALCs

Walk Inspiration - CAMRA Pub Walks in Edinburgh, Walk 17

22/01/25 - Over Calton Hill for three in Broughton Street, Edinburgh

Edinburgh's Lesser Heralded Pubs still punching

I'm a big fan of the Bob Steel (RIP) CAMRA books. I started his Edinburgh Pub Crawls book in 2011 and its still providing new adventures.

A visit would be incomplete if you didn't head up Calton Hill for the views in every direction. Arthurs Seat, the Castle, The North Side down to the sea.

Heading on up

For great views over the City....

... Arthur's Seat...

...And a cloud inversion forming over the Firth of Forth

Walk over and Bob has three new pub recommendations for me to try in Broughton Street.  And I will be forever thankful for that.

The Cask and Barrel is a super locals pub, with great beer. A fine central horseshoe bar, with bench seating all the way around. Walls festooned with brewery mirrors. Mrs M is made up when a Golden Retriever enters, goes hunting behind the bar for treats until he is shooed out and comes over for a big old fuss.

The Cask and Barrel - A corner local

Not often I choose against a Landlord but I need to be LocALE. Swannay Scarpa Special.

Winner of most beautiful pub of the night is the Barony Bar. Resistance is futile in this small but handsome tenement pub.

Barony Bar - A Scottish True Heritage Pub

Always good to get a booth to check in a Stewarts 80/-

Two pubs does not a crawl make but the route has a "Try Also" section. We are the only punters in W.M. Mathers. A two level, narrow pub with a Fyne Ales Jarl to finish up the drinking. A table booked at Mamma Roma for the best Italian food I have ever had.

And as I told the waiter, "I'be been to Italy".

Jarl at Mathers

Walk Details

Distance - 2 Miles

Geocaches - A couple of ALCs on the Hill

Walk Inspiration - CAMRA Edinburgh Pub Walks, Walk 3

22/01/25 - Arthur's Seat and the Sheep Heid, Duddingston

Return of the Mapp

Not many routes get blogged twice - even if it was 14 years since I last completed this walk.

But if you come to Edinburgh, and a named storm isn't in town, then you really have to do this.

Start at the bottom of the Royal Mile, check out the remains of St Anthony's Chapel and then its uphill, following your fellow tourists.

Incredibly, I appear to have improved my fitness. We did it in a "one-er" without stopping for breath.

St Margaret's Loch

St Antony's Chapel

Selfie - Edinburgh in the gloom

This lack of rest stops impact the plans for the day. Lunch was planned at Scotland's Oldest Pub - Duddingston's Sheep Heid dating from 1360 - but we are 45 minutes too early. We're also too early for the only cafe in the village - which opens in two day's time. We cannot stretch out the only geocache sufficiently.

Photo's only.....

At least we have been before

From 1360

Proving that we can adapt - an Adventure Lab Cache took us to Britain's Oldest Railway Tunnel - The Innocent Tunnel. A fast track route through St Leanards, the South Side and back into town.

A New Route

I'd always wanted to visit the Surgeons' Hall Museum. Fascinating the number of different ways the human body can go wrong. And you can see the specimens in formaldehyde to learn all about it. 

Just don't go before lunch. 

Walk Details

Distance - 4 Miles

Walk Inspiration - Edinburgh, 40 Town and City Walks, Walk 13 and Walk 14

Geocaches - 1 and a few ALCs

21/01/25 - The Kelpies from Falkirk Grahamston Station

Boosting Tourism in an Unloved Part of Town

Mrs M is keen to see some giant horse heads. Falkirk has them, but what Instagram doesn't tell you is where they reside. Next to Forth and Clyde Canal, but on a stretch of former industrial land, where the only part to not be reclaimed is the sewage works.

The mile and half walk from Falkirk Station is urban grittiness at its finest. Dying or dead pubs and Turkish Barbers where the advertising claims that both Beckham and Ronaldo get their hair done there.

Once road walking complete - take the Forth and Clyde Canal

Crazy Horses....

... The Kelpies.

But its fresh air and when you reach the 30m Horse Heads, you cannot remain unimpressed for long. Hats off to the Tourist Board for creating something out of nothing.

Photos, a visitor centre and another tick off the bucket list.

Should you look at the map below and wonder why the walk ends abruptly, a handy bus whisked us back into town.

Falkirk - a nice town centre, the country's smallest street and just the one Good Beer Guide Tick.  Hidden down an alley.

Mrs M Found the sign

1797 Dormer Bungalow

Alas, not opening till 1pm, despite us turning up at the pubby hour of 12:04.

Walk Details

Distance - 3.5 Miles

Walk Inspiration - Walk Highlands 

Geocaches - 1 and some Falkirk ALCs

01/10/19 - Inverness - The Good Beer Guide Pubs and Others

Pubs - 5

3rd and Final City on the Scottish train holiday.   Finding our reserved seats was made easier by there only being 3 carriages but infinitely harder by none of them being labelled.   We found Seat 21 and 22, moved some elderly day trippers and before determining 2 hours into the journey, we were in carriage C - and not A. 

That will teach us to use logic, like going to the carriage at the front.

The walking in Inverness was a simple town trail - with a view to knocking off several of the Good Beer Guide ticks.

But first, a visit to Gellions - who can ignore the chance to visit the oldest in the City?   A functional boozer, noted only for the prospect of Live Music and Leeds vs. West Brom later in the night.

Oldest and Freshly Caught Haggis

The first GBG Tick is MacGregors (Academy Street).   Visions of an old man's drinking den giving Mrs M the shivers were quickly dispelled by a bright, cafe type bar.   Two cask and a large number of kegs.   My cask failed mid pour - so I moved onto a keg Spey Valley David's Not So Bitter.

It must have been the name.

This too proved a mistake. 

Look at that filth

I compared with other check in on UnTappd and stated that mine looks like no one elses.   I should have taken it back - but somehow, you'd expect better from a GBG pub.

Disappointment only intensified in the gents.

No

Mrs M retreats back to the Premier Inn, leaving me with a bank card and a couple of hours grace.

Next stop is the GBG Black Isle Bar (Church Street) - a cavernous prison canteen of a bar, with an internal pizza oven and TV sets letting you know what's on offer from the breweries range.

Everything needed for the gentleman around town

Who was to know that their Scotch Ale was only served in halves?   Not wanting to fall foul of minimum card purchase, I found a flaw in their pintless plan.

Other chap has the half pint hump

Architectural meanderings as I walk past the churches and over the castle for the appropriately named Castle Tavern (View Place).

Castle View

For a Castle View

Comfortable, traditional bar, offering locALE brews and for those so inclined, certificates for finishing either the Great Glen Way or the Scottish 500.

Never go far wrong with an Orkney Dark Island

That's enough for the afternoon, so I head back to the Purple Palace that is the Premier Inn.   Mrs M is up for evening sight seeing.

Inverness by night.   Who allowed those blocks to be built in front of the castle?

It was going to be kill two birds with one stone and head to GBG Number 27 Bar and Restaurant but Mrs M was not hungry.   Rather than an aimless bimble around town, we were seduced by the Caledonian.

Handsome

Average Deuchars stuffed into Carling glasses and any change to our food requirements was answered by "chef stops at 8pm", it did have the saving grace of having the Baggies on.   Leeds triumphed.

Only the best bar in Inverness could save us now.   Hootanannys may not in the GBG but its one of the finest pubs I've been to, having discovered it 10 years ago. 

You simply cannot beat the atmosphere generated by live music in a busy environment.

And Guinness is always good.

Hootanannys by day

Hootanannys by night

Regrets?  I should have bought a T-Shirt.