Scotland 2026 - Day 12 - (September 29)

Today we moved back to Edinburgh, but as always need to fill the day to move between places.  And today was only about a 1 hour drive between the 2 cities, so AA found us a castle to stop at on the way.

So we packed up, said goodbye to our AirBnB.  AA went and got the van so we didn't have to walk down the hill with our suitcases.  We got our suitcases into the van, and loaded up, and away we went.  

We went to Linlithgow Castle.  It was the mid point between Stirling and Edinburgh castles. Lola isn't the best to blog about these kinds of things, as she can't usually remember a lot of details about the castles.  The castle is is the birth place of Mary, Queen of Scot.  King James V was also born here.  T got a "quiz" to do, and we enjoyed helping him find the answers. Counting steps, islands in the loch, chimneys, and windows, and reading and looking at the rooms to find different information.

This castle had a fire in the 1700's and they never rebuilt it. There were spiral staircases up the towers, where we counted one and we got 137 steps.  We explored all the rooms, round the "outside" of the courtyard. The apartments were so neat, as there were no floors left, but just a whole bunch of fireplaces in a row.  We explored the great hall and discovered the corridor that goes along the side, and inside the corridor there is a Portcullis, a slot for the gate that went up 3 floors. Really cool you could look up and down and see where it would be placed. 

After the castle, T bought a pocket history book of Scotland in the gift shop, and we took a peek in the St Michael's Church.  We headed to Cafe Bar 1807.  The food was amazing, Lola and MBM had baked potatoes, DD had Vegetarian Scottish (breakfast), T had the Scottish Bite breakfast, AA had the Curry Dog, while B had a tuna Toastie.

Walked back to the car and headed for a short drive (20 minutes) to the Edinburgh Zoo.  Lola and MBM found signs on the bus' that said there was a baby sloth so they really wanted to go. We arrived at 2:00pm and was surprised at the sign that said all the baby animals that were there.

We saw so many animals, with the highlights being the red panda, the penguins, the Scottish wildcat and Koalas.

So happy to be successful seeing all the babies...

- Couldn't see the egg, but there was a King Penguin sitting on a egg (first one in 17 years)

- Baby Capabara

-baby anteater

- Baby Pigmy Hippo

- Baby Sloth (sleeping with its mother)

The kids didn't want to leave, but adults were tired, as the zoo is on a big hill, and our legs were getting tired.

We headed for a another 15 minute drive where AA found a parking spot so we could walk to get to our last Airbnb right near Victoria Street.  As we drove, MBM and Lola saw there was a Cat Cafe right near, and looked at each other in the van but didn't say any thing.

The men helped up carry our luggage up the 3 flights of spiral staircase and then headed to go return the van. 

The ladies booked the Cat Cafe, and took the kids.  B was so excited, and T really had a good time.  There were 10 cats in total.  We had drinks and played with the cats.  Each had a sibling of the same type, and it was fun to see how they interacted with each other. The hour went by quickly, but it was good that it was not too long as MBM is allergic to cats. We all had a good time.  

After it was over, we headed to find somewhere to meet the boys for dinner, Lola suggested the Italian place that actually had non pasta/pizza on the menu.  We had olives and garlic bread as an appetizer.

Pizza for AA, T and B and MBM had lasagna.  DD had vegetarian pasta, and Lola had chicken in tomato sauce with potatoes. We all enjoyed the meals.

We walked up Victoria Street, which was the inspiration for Diagon Alley in the Harry potter novels/movies and headed back to our place to try wieners in a jar and played some games monopoly deal and cribbage.