Stop 3: Edinburgh, Scotland!

Maryam and Nivaal Rehman | Edinburgh, Scotland

Our Road Trip for Change has been pretty incredible so far. We would love to be able to share every detail of this journey with all of you, but it's quite hard to post in real time because we are visiting family and friends all across the UK during this time, and our days have been incredibly busy. That being said, the next official stop of our trip was Edinburgh. We have always heard of the natural beauty of Scotland, and spent three days of our trip in the country. To begin, we drove with our family in Manchester to Edinburgh, and received a bus tour of the city when we arrived. The whole city was very different from London, in that the colour of the buildings (which had phenomenal architecture by the way), was mostly comprised of dark-brown shades.

Our drive to Scotland was beautiful, and the natural beauty we saw along the way was just breathtaking. We spent the first day driving there, and left early the next morning to embark on our tour. One of the first activities that we did was go on a bus tour of the city, much like what we did in London. It was an amazing way to go all around and see the unique culture and hear more about the history of Edinburgh.

Edinburgh was such a beautiful city, rich with music, art and exquisite architecture. There were also really incredible street performers around the city. The moody skies, the brown, intricately designed buildings and cobblestone streets just left us in awe.

We felt like we were in a completely different world. The distances between towns in Canada are so much longer, and yet the landscapes do not change as much as they did between London and Edinburgh. It was hard to believe that a place so close was so different.

Edinburgh had a charm that we just loved experiencing. There were also signs to throw away litter and environmentally-conscious slogans around the city, which we appreciated tremendously.

One of our favourite parts of the nature in the city, was the thistle - Scotland's national flower, which was a deep, rich shade of purple and we absolutely loved seeing it everywhere. Our favourite colour is purple too, and so it was amazing to see this beautiful flower growing everywhere.

One of our favourite places in the entire city, was the Elephant House Cafe, which is famous for being the cafe where J.K. Rowling first began writing the Harry Potter Books.

We have been Harry Potter fans ever since we read the books for the first time in Grade 6, and so it was magical to visit the cafe where J.K. Rowling first began to write them.

We also heard that she lives in Edinburgh, which made us

love the city even more.

Overall, being in Edinburgh was an incredible experience, and we loved it. Whether we were walking down the cobblestone streets, through the gardens, or exploring the little shops with traditional scottish souvenirs, every moment was unique and equally enjoyable.

Here are some more pictures from our trip to the city, as well as our vlog from our time there: