Nic and Sue’s Euro River Cruise and some bits on the side. Autumn 2026. Day 9 – Plan C Edinburgh – Day 3.

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A bit of a sleep in, despite a restless night, woke up after 7!

Today we headed off to arrange a hire car for the next stage of Plan C – it was busy with pick ups, but the bloke was helpful, and will have a car for us tomorrow – fingers crossed.

He suggested a Stansted drop off and we need to come around tomorrow at 10.

From there (with fingers crossed car will be available in the morning)

On the walk to AVIS car rental we discovered a canal just behind our hotel really.

We hopped a bus to Leith, a working port/harbour town, and a tram to the Foot of the Walk, with a few around the Waters of Leith. Quite a mixture of old and new. It’s a Harbour city, with lots of port infrastructure. Boatels in old ships in the canal. Lots of eateries.

We stopped at an eatery Teutcher’s Landing Bar across from Rennie’s old loch gates. Once we moved to the main part of the pub it was warmer and more interesting. I had delicious Calamari, Sue had fish and chips. Figured the seaside was the place to have seafood. I also opted for a Scottish Cider – very nice it was too.

Took a bus to Silverknowes. Just to see. Took us along the shore for a bit then into the ‘burbs. Interesting to see the housing etc. at the end of the line was Silverknowes Golf Course, so we went and had a look.
Then while Sue was picking our destination, I checked into tomorrow’s accommodation in Fort William. We had no clue where the bus was taking us, we hoped New Town.
Along the shore we passed lots of apartment/high rise housing, then on the next bus we snapped front top deck and the housing became more affluent. There were houses with caravans and motor homes and gardens.

The names of places are varied and we’ve seen some that might have made it into JK Rowling’s Harry Potter books. She evidently wrote the book here. Dobbies Garden Centre stood out for me.

New Town provided the best view of the Castle and Crag and tail and a bonus of the back of the Royal Mile.

Sue hits the shops briefly. Then we caught another bus home to the hotel.

We are owed a welcome drink and then we need to get organised a bit.

We did a little more research and booked a place on Skye – pretty expensive and not a lot of vacancy. Anyway we have the next three nights organised and now we just need a car in the morning and we are on the next stage of Plan C.