Agie’s flat is on the first floor. Ignore the rather scruffy front garden, hall and stairwell, her flat is warm, inviting and scrupulously clean. It is also very quiet. The beds are comfortable as are the sofa and armchair. Piles of clean towels. The kitchen has everything you would need to cook a meal, but we only had breakfast in the flat as there are so many places to eat nearby.
Agie has a folder with recommendations for local restaurants. We ate at the Olive Branch which was a little pricey but the food was fabulous. We also tried Kahani which is Indian and has a ‘Bring your own bottle’ policy (beer and wine only) and doesn’t charge corkage - the food was pretty good too!
We got the tram from the airport to York place and then the flat was approximately 10 minutes easy walk from there. There is a Tesco’s a short walk from the flat for essentials, and an off licence, bakery and Italian deli.
We are sixty somethings in reasonably good health and it took us about 15 minutes to walk to Princes Street at the centre of Edinburgh. The city itself is very easy to get around on foot, although there are plenty of buses too.
There is so much to see and do, but a few recommendations - the Castle obviously, the audio guides were excellent and the earphones also doubled as ear muffs as the day we visited it was freezing! The Royal Yacht Britannia - we got the bus out to Ocean Terminal where it is moored. There is also a large shopping mall there and plenty of places to eat. The Camera Obscura - the obscura bit was a little disappointing, but the rest of the illusions were fun and children would enjoy them.
The museums and art galleries are free! The National Museum of Scotland was just excellent, so well laid out, we went back twice to see areas we missed the first time round, and again lots for children to do. I enjoyed the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, the husband not so much, but they do an amazingly good value lunch in their dining room.
If you need to leave luggage on the day you leave and are heading back to the airport later in the day, we would recommend a website called Stasher. They have left luggage sites all over, but the best one for us was at the Premier Inn on York Place which is right opposite where the trams for the airport stop. You have to book and pay on line, but we found it the cheapest and most convenient and our luggage was safely locked away till we came back to collect it.
We would definitely recommend Agie’s flat, it was just perfect for our few days visit to this lovely city.