Edinburgh, Scotland

We arrived in Edinburgh close to midnight and bussed to the city center for the short walk to our flat. The first thing I noticed about the city was the differences in elevation because everything has been built on hills. With streets crossing hundreds of feet above others and little stairways all over the city to change levels accordingly, the layout of this city is incredible. Not to mention the beauty of the Old Town area where we spent most of our time, which is covered with medieval architecture. We rented a flat for our time here and it could not have been more perfect. Located just a few blocks off of the Royal Mile and in the middle of several Fringe Festival events, we were able to walk every single place we went in Edinburgh. Upon arrival we were amazed not only by its location but also the style of the 18th century flat which was decorated with several city maps from different time periods, showing the growth of the city, as well as many photos of Scottish royalty, writers and historic idols.

With the city streets still being very lively at 2:30 am, we found a street vendor selling bratwurst and had that as our first meal in Scotland before turning in for the night. The first morning we walked down George IV Bridge to see the Elephant House where JK Rowling wrote much of the second, third and fourth Harry Potter books but being overly crowded with tourists we walked across the street to Caffe Lucano for coffee and breakfast. 

We then made our way down the Royal Mile, shopping around in little boutiques and watching street performers. From there we crossed over the Waverley Bridge to Princes Street in New Town and popped into a grocery for a bottle of wine, which we took to the Princes Street Gardens and enjoyed while people watching in the park and looking at Edinburgh's beautiful natural architecture framing the castle. 

During the month of August, the Fringe Festival takes over Edinburgh which is the largest arts festival in the world and is comparable to SXSW in that it's a multi-venue, city sweeping festival but in this case primarily theater and comedy. Some of the parks in town are transformed into outdoor venues for the festival and we found a great picnic table in the middle of George Square Gardens to finish our bottle of wine and get a first glimpse at the festival. After a quick meal at the Indian restaurant below our flat, we began our trek to the castle for Saturday's later showing of the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo. With performances by several military bands, bagpipers and dancers, I can best describe this as being comparable to the opening ceremony at the Olympics, however every group performing is either representative of a particular time of importance in Scottish history or of another culture that was helpful to the Scots and it all takes place in the esplanade of the Edinburgh Castle illuminated with lighting effects throughout the entire performance. It was essentially 2 hours of being in complete awe followed by grande finale firework display, and one of the most wonderful experiences of my life. 

On our second day, we grabbed coffee and breakfast at Brew Lab, a trendy little cafe below our flat, and then walked to the meeting place for the Potter Walking Tour. For the next hour and a half we walked the streets of Edinburgh waving wands around, casting spells on pedestrian crosswalks to let us pass and visiting several of the places that inspired JK Rowling in writing Harry Potter. 

After the tour, we took a short break in a coffee house called Booze + Coffee where we appropriately had Prosecco and espresso. For lunch we walked to The Outsiders, a restaurant I would recommend to anyone visiting Edinburgh for it's remarkable style, food, price and location with George IV Bridge on one side and the back resting on top of a hill overlooking the city with great views of the castle, several streets and Princes Street Gardens. That afternoon we visited Camera Obscura and World of Illusions museum with several optical illusions and interactive art covering 5 floors which lead to the top of the building where you find Camera Obscura, a three lens and mirror combination which projects real time images onto a circular wooden screen in a dark room and served as a citywide surveillance camera when it was first designed in the mid 1800's.

 We grabbed afternoon cocktails and Thai food then walked to the the Udderbelly area of the Fringe Festival, marked by a massive upside down purple cow that hosts the largest stage of the festival. After a recommendation from our Potter tour guide, we had purchased tickets to a show called Shit-Faced Shakespeare which is a completely serious rendition of Shakespeare's Two Gentlemen of Verona with one randomly chosen cast member who is completely shitfaced for the show. On this particular night, the actress playing Julia/Sebastian finished two bottles of champagne on her own before the performance. 

As the show was introduced, random members of the audience were assigned a gong to ring and a bugle to blow whenever they wanted during the show to make the actress drink more and another person was assigned a bucket...just in case. While all other actors completely stuck to character, you could hear the drunk actress with her microphone on backstage mumbling ridiculous things, hiccuping and requesting cigarette breaks. She could remember some of her lines but would fade off into speaking in more modern words and calling other cast members knobs and dickheads for interrupting her or bursting into song with Outkast lyrics having nothing to do with the play. Occasionally she would request to start over because "this part is really fucking important and that was rubbish" or she would insist on riding on props as they were rolled off stage. At one point she crawled under another actress's dress and narrated as though she was her vagina. It was all somewhat vulgar but absolutely hysterical and I have never laughed so much in a theater. By the time the show ended, we agreed we had really done Edinburgh right and went back to the flat to pack for our early flight the next morning.

Dublin, Ireland

After a wild and crazy first night in Cork, we accidentally slept in pretty late on our second day before catching the train back to Dublin. Once we arrived and checked into our hotel, we opted to take advantage of the absolutely perfect weather and make the short trip to a nearby coastal city called Howth. With only a few days in Ireland, we didn't think squeezing in a day trip to the Cliffs of Moher was possible, so we found the next best thing in a small coastal city only 30 minutes from Dublin. We arrived in Howth with at least 3 hours of remaining daylight and spent the first hour and a half hiking the the cliffs along the Atlantic coastline to find the lighthouse at the northernmost part of the island. The entire hike was incredibly beautiful, with ocean views as you would imagine the most beautiful parts of Ireland would have.

 We then cut through the more residential area, covered in multimillion dollar vacation homes, each of which has a unique nickname posted on its doorway or fenced entrance. To take a short break, we had a beer at a local pub with an ocean view. From there we finished the walk back to the train station and made it back to Dublin by 10pm. After freshening up, we went to Stag's Head, a pub in the Temple Bar area, where we met the most interesting and wonderful Irishman named Peter. After hours of talking over beers and sharing many life stories, I can best describe him as a person  feel incredibly fortunate to have gotten the chance to meet. As the pub was closing, he told us about a secret speakeasy cocktail bar in an unmarked building nearby and we strolled the streets of Temple Bar with him to find it so we could come back for a drink. 

Day two in Dublin we walked most of the city center visiting Christ Church Cathedral, St. Patrick's Cathedral, the Dublin Castle, Trinity College to see the Book of Kells and Long Hallway library, and Braezen Head, which is allegedly the oldest pub in Dublin. In an attempt to find a riverside rooftop bar, we ventured to North Wall Quay but the bar was closed for a private event and instead we found ourselves on The Boat Bar & Restaurant, sitting on the river and snacking on mussels and beer while watching the sun go down. 

On our way back to the hotel we stopped at super trendy restaurant called Crackbird for dinner which serves various fried chicken dishes with unique culinary twists. After freshening up for the evening, we walked to the unmarked bar Peter showed us the night before and rang the doorbell where we were greeted by a very welcoming woman who led us to the third floor of the building which had an open roof, several candlelit tables and the most unique bar atmosphere I've ever experienced - known as VCC, or Vintage Cocktail Club. The extensive drink menu is divided by time periods of the recipes' origins and I ordered one pre 1880 cocktail called a Straight Sling and another from the 1960's, The Dirty Wizard which was the best cocktail I have ever consumed. 

Although VCC was hard to leave, we wanted to cover more ground so we walked to another highly recommended bar called The Workman's Club. There we met several locals that we ended up really hitting it off with and preceded to close down the bar with them before finding ourselves on an adventure to find wine. We ended up convincing a waiter at a nearby late night Indian food restaurant to sell us 4 bottles of wine to-go before cabbing back to one of their houses for a post party that lasted until after sunrise. Needless to say, we did not make our noon check out time the next morning and had to pay a small fee to cover a late check out when we finally pulled ourselves together that afternoon. Being our last day in Dublin we spent it doing a miniature pub crawl and hopped around from bar to bar trying to hair the dog so we would feel well enough for our 10pm flight to Edinburgh. 

Day 1 - Cork, Ireland

We landed in Dublin just before 5am and caught the 7am train to Cork, Ireland, located about 2 hours south. Adding Cork as a destination on this trip was pretty random but we wanted to see the Blarney Castle and kiss the Blarney Stone which are only about 20 minutes outside of the city of Cork so we booked are first night at The River Lee Hotel, sitting on the river running through this beautiful city.

 A power nap was a must after not sleeping since waking up for our flight the morning prior in Houston, so we squeezed in 3 hours of rest then caught a bus to Blarney. Even with the light rain we had most of our first day, the Irish countryside and the views from the castle were absolutely breathtaking. The Blarney Castle is estimated to have been built in about 1450 and is situated on a small river and surrounded by several gardens, to include a poison garden composed entirely of poisonous plants. After a tour of the castle and gaining a lifetime of eloquence by kissing the Blarney Stone we made our way back to the city.

The next stop, of course, was a pub. We walked from the bus station to city center where many shops, restaurants and pubs are located, and followed the sound of music through an alleyway to a group of students who were performing all kinds of songs, from The Strokes to music from Disney's Aladin for anyone that wanted to listen. Nearby we found Jim Cashman's Pub for our first beers in Ireland. While walking around this most central part of the city we came across some street art I'm almost positive is the work of Banksy. 

For dinner we walked to Market Lane, a top rated restaurant in Cork on TripAdvisor. This trendy, two 

story gastropub has incredible cocktails and a menu any foodie would absolutely love. After dinner we went back to the hotel to watch the sun set from the patio bar on the river and celebrated a successful first day over a bottle of Prosecco. With a second wave of energy, we decided it was too early to go to bed despite our extreme lack of sleep so we walked towards city center to find another pub. At The Bailey we made friends with some fellow American travelers and bonded with the bar owner, ironically named Ollie. He recommended another more crowded bar for our next stop and we made our way to Rearden's. I had a good chat with the bouncer who happened to be a huge ZZ Top fan and loved that we were from Houston where Billy Gibbons grew up. At midnight the pub closes and club opens at this two-part bar. Because there was a €15 cover we decided to leave when the club fired up, but upon hearing this the bouncer said "follow me!" and walked us right back into the club without paying the cover. We danced until the lights came on and after a jam packed and extremely successful first day in Europe we called it a night.

Better Late Than Never

Since I never got to writing my final Europe post, here goes:

Amsterdam

From Copenhagen we boarded yet another overnight train to The Netherlands, landing the next morning in Amsterdam. Since the bad weather was still following us we spent our first morning settling into our hotel, resting a little and catching up on laundry, but when it cleared up we had some time to explore. The entire city is covered in canals and bicycles. From Dam Square to the Red Light District you see your fair share of interesting things, but Amsterdam has some of the most talented street musicians I’ve ever seen.

We went on a countryside bike tour, seeing a lot of the houseboats and windmills on the outskirts of town and visiting a nearby cheese and clog factory.  Later we got schooled on drugs at Cannabis College, where an obscene number of random marijuana facts are available to visitors. We had dinner at my new favorite fast food place with to-go noodle dishes called Wok-to-Walk.

The Anne Frank House Visiting the Anne Frank House was one of the highlights of this city and one of my favorite historical sites from the whole trip. Another Amsterdam favorite was a wine and local cheese pairing at Reypenaer Tasting Room. The best restaurant was the Pancake Bakery where, even though they are more like crepes, the pancakes are to die for. 

Brussels

For spending only one night in Brussels, we definitely covered a lot of ground. We visited the Charles Buls statue,  Grand Place and the Manneken Pis before heading to the Cantillion Brewery.  Our tour of the 111 year old brewery showed off the entire beer creation process and to finish it off, we got to sample some interesting Belgian beers.

We decided to splurge on an incredible seafood meal, complete with lobster and escargot, but we also made sure to have Belgian waffles and some Belgian chocolates while in town. We spent most of our evening catching up with some other travel friends from TCU at the Delirium brewery. Don’t worry, we didn’t leave Belgium without drinking out of Das Boot!

Paris

We kicked off our first night in Paris by visiting Notre Dame and Saint Chappelle, which is made almost completely our of stained glass. Afterwards we went on the Fat Tire Bike Tour of the city that included a perfectly timed canal tour where we got to watch the sun set over the city and see the Eiffel Tower’s nighttime light show.

We spent almost an entire day at Versailles, seeing not only the palace and gardens, but also The Grand Trianon and Marie-Antoinette’s Estate. After a long day we made our way to a restaurant called Le Refuge des Fondues near Montmartre where we were served wine in baby bottles and had an incredible fondue style dinner.

The next day we visited the Louvre, where my favorite exhibit was Winged Victory, and got an incredible view of the entire city from the top of the Arc di Triomphe. After an excellent French dinner, complete with onion soup, we explored some of the Paris nightlife. On our last day, we had lunch at Montmartre before checking out the Moulin Rouge and Luxembourg Gardens. To celebrate a successful trip, we had our last dinner at Café Le Malakoff and made our way to the place du Trocadéro, which had an amazing view of the Eiffel Tower as the sun set behind it. Ending our trip in such a beautiful place made it tough, but it couldn’t have been a more perfect close to the most incredible adventure I’ve ever had.