Edinburgh – Day 1 – Free Harry Potter Tour & Oysters!

Fun fact. Jinny and I have legally been married for a year! We went to Seoul on June 25th 2018 and visited the English embassy to become legally man and wife. It was all very romantic, there was a bible, I was wearing shorts and in the evening we celebrated by eating grilled tripe, yummy. Honestly it was a pretty complicated and legal thing which I am sure we will get round to writing about for other British Korean love birds who want to know how to tie the knot in Korea.

So to celebrate our official one year anniversary we book a trip to Scotland! By some miracle, the weather was fantastic our entire time there too, we even got a tan. We got some awesome tickets using Trainline which has been very handy for us getting reasonable tickets while we have been in the UK. We were able to get a ticket at £19.50 per person and headed off to Edinburgh in the early morning. 

We had the breakfast of champions, McDonalds, and transferred to our lovely Virgin Train at Preston to arrive just after noon.

Accommodation

We stayed at some super budget accommodation, Destiny Student – Holyrood (Brae House) which is student accommodation. So very close to the city centre and also a shared kitchen so we can even cook some of our own food too. We managed to book 3 days for under £100 via booking.com, bargain!  

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After dropping off our bags we heading back into Edinburgh as we had arrange a Harry Potter tour. 

Harry Potter Tour

Edinburgh has strong ties to Harry Potter due to the author J. K. Rowling who lived in Edinburgh when she was writing the novels. Even though she is originally from England, and didn’t start the novel there (she first had the idea for Harry Potter while delayed on a train traveling from Manchester to London King’s Cross in 1990 – reference). Never the less, there are many places in the city which are strong links with her and Harry potter. 

There are lots of paid tours, as well as DIY Harry Potter tours on-line. We decided to meet in the middle and did a free tip based Harry Potter Tour! We signed up with The Orange Free Tour and set off to explore the magical city of Edinburgh. 

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JK Rowling’s Handprints

The first stop on the tour were the JK Rowling’s Handprints which is located in the City Chambers. The prints were produced when JK Rowling was awarded the Edinburgh Award in 2008.

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After that we were told more about the architect, mythology and history of Scotland which could have inspired some aspects of novel. Such Scotland’s National Animal being a unicorn (due to unicorn being able to kill lions which was Englands National Animal), with unicorn being a key animal in the first book harry potter and the philosopher’s stone.

The Balmoral Hotel

We then moved over to look at the The Balmoral Hotel. When she was trying to finish her last book she locked herself up . here until it was complete. Thankfully for her and all the people waiting to read the end, she completed the last scenes of her final book in one of the hotel’s grandest suites, Room 552. In celebration she even signed the marble bust of Hermes, the Greek god of travel which was in the room. They renamed the suite, ‘The Rowling Suite’ and there is a mega waiting list to stay over. 

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Victoria Street

We then walked past Victoria Street which many think is the inspiration for Diagon Alley. It is a very colourful and unique street in Edinburgh. 100% worth a visit. There is even a cool harry potter store too, The Boy Wizard

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The Elephant House

Past Victoria Street we went past The Elephant House. They claim to be the “birthplace” of Harry Potter as it was actually one of a few cafes which J.K used when she was writing her book. What is unique though is that the restroom in the cafe has been filled with Harry Potter graffiti. Many people (maybe inspired by the her own Hermes graffiti in the hotel) decided to mark the toilets with lots of different Potter themed graffiti.

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Greyfriar’s Kirkyard

The last stop was the most grim. It was the Greyfriar’s Kirkyard, which is a graveyard visible from The Elephant House. She would often take walks here with her child. Within the graveyard there is a tomb stone for Thomas Riddle, also known as Lord Voldemort or “He who must not be named”. It is such a popular grave to be visited now that there is a closed off section to access it. 

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As well as the main attractions above, our guide took us to some other places and kept the Potter knowledge flowing the entire time. We had a great afternoon and would highly recommend it to people. It is indeed also entirely free, but of cause if you enjoyed the tour and gained some knowledge then we would encourage people to tip. 

Oyster Bar

For our anniversary dinner Jinny had found an awesome oyster bar. While a lot of people do not like raw oysters, we are MASSIVE fans. The great thing about the place we went, White Horse Oyster & Seafood Bar is that they have a cockage club on Monday & Tuesday (just £5 for any bottle you bring in) plus if you got Monday – Thursday between 4-6PM, then you can have their oysters for £1!!!! Super bargain, especially considering that they are usually £3. 

We took excellent use of both of their offers. In the end we managed to consume 42 oysters in just over an hour. It was an impressive feat, enough to get a compliment from the staff!

It was an unforgettable meal, and a beautiful way for us to celebrate our anniversary. 

We would even go back to Edinburgh just to purely enjoy the oyster offer again! In total we managed to save more than £80 thanks to their amazing offer.

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Tolbooth Tavern

After our dinner and another pint at a pub we headed back to our accommodation to rest up for another full day tomorrow. We had booked two more tours and were going to meet one of my old friends from university. Read here for day 2.

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