Ah, Edinburgh!

One’s impressions of any travel destination are influenced by many variables around a visit there: the mood you are in, the weather, who you are with, how long you have been travelling.

And the accommodation you stayed in.

Our short holiday in Edinburgh a few years back is a textbook example of this.

My elderly mother had been there a few years before us and absolutely loved it.

‘Ah, Edinburgh!’ Mum sighed, wistful expression on her face.

She’d been on an epic European tour from the final years before she passed away and was itching to talk about it.

Edinburgh.

We were in Edinburgh about 4 years ago and did not warm to the place.

I’m not being critical of the city.

I’m just being brutally honest.

I had trouble believing that we were in the same place that my mum adored. I’d read the guidebooks which waxed on about Edinburgh Castle, the Medieval Old Town, the elegant Georgian New Town, ghost tours and Arthur’s Seat. I’d also enjoyed reading most of Ian Rankin’s ‘Rebus’ novels.

I have Scottish ancestry that I’m quietly proud of and teach history back in Australia. I should have loved Edinburgh.

The Scottish have a proud, gritty history and Edinburgh is the capital, so I was genuinely surprised that we were ‘underwhelmed’ by the place. We didn’t hate it. It just did not rate well amongst the travel nostalgia that we have stored up over the years.

I’m perceptive enough to understand that it was probably not Edinburgh’s fault.

Here’s what I think happened.

We arrived in Edinburgh one afternoon in our rental Fiat 500. We’d been travelling for 4 weeks already. Earlier that morning we had departed Callander, a town to the west. We made our way slowly towards the capital, stopping for a few hours at a zoo in the middle of nowhere.

Yep, a Scottish zoo, complete with elephants, giraffes, and monkeys, just to mention a few of the exotic animal breeds there.

By the time we reached the city it was past lunchtime and we had probably been on the road far too long.

We had not booked accommodation in Edinburgh. We’d fallen into a comfortable pattern of driving each day, stopping when and where we felt like it. Besides, it would not be hard to find somewhere to stay.

After all, the Scottish speak English, right?

I drove through the entire City Centre, something I hadn’t planned on doing an hour before, and on impulse turned left and headed north out towards Leith.

We were already getting a bit hangry by the time we parked on Queen Charlotte Street. We were adjacent to a green space (which turned out to be Leith Links) and could see potential accommodation all along the far side of it on Hermitage Place.

But we needed to eat first.

We exited our vehicle. A man staggered past us from a side street. He did not make eye contact. There was blood streaming from his battered face, but passersby seemed not to notice anything out of the ordinary.

We had a hearty late lunch back on the corner at a pleasant bar called Brass Monkey Shore.

We emerged fortified to search for accommodation. Some of the places in the row alongside the green were recommended in our guidebook, so it was an obvious place to start.

The hours wore on. All the accommodation was either booked out or we could not get the attention of anybody to find out.

The weather was deteriorating, and we did not want to resume driving.

In desperation we tried the one final place in the same row.

The exterior looked okay, similar to the others in that row, perhaps a little more neglected.

A woman on reception seemed irritated that we had interrupted her. But we managed to get the attention of an overweight man, wearing a greasy, sweat stained tee shirt. He informed us in a heavy accent, possibly from eastern Europe, that they had one room. It appeared to be reasonable value for Edinburgh.

An unspecified breakfast was included.

We were buoyed by not having to sleep in the car and did not ask to see the room. We were tired. We wanted to believe in it – and him – so booked 3 nights.

We creaked up a narrow stairwell dragging a suitcase each, banging into corners.

The room was instantly underwhelming but this was the price of a bargain, I reasoned.

That was until I tried to get around to my side of the bed on the far side of the room. I had to shuffle sideways along the end of the bed - the gap between it and the wall was a matter of inches.

The TV was the size of a postage stamp and so high up that we could barely reach it, let alone view it effectively. It did not work anyway as we soon found out.

The bathroom was more a wet room than a bathroom. Ironically, given the miniscule bedroom, this room was huge. The plumbing, however, was terrifying. Electrical wiring was exposed in the shower.

Nothing smelt fresh.

But we had somewhere to sleep the night so we could refresh and explore the city the next morning.

Right?

Wrong.

We still don’t understand what went on in that building throughout the night, one of the longest nights of my life.

We have obviously discussed it since on numerous occasions, returning to the mystery of the loud bangs reverberating through the entire building all night.

Was somebody deliberately banging walls? Renovating?

Trying to escape, perhaps? That I could understand.

It was unbelievably frustrating drifting into a doze each time, only to be brought to a rude awakening as a mammoth seemingly smashed into the wall from an adjoining room.

The first night of this was bad enough. We had a very basic and very ordinary breakfast the next morning, dazed and surly, not a great start to a day of sightseeing. My partner spoke just once over breakfast, pointing out that the family portraits decorating the walls were the ones that came pre-bought with the frames.

Generic white families were smiling happily in each photo.

It is probably no great surprise, then, that our sightseeing later that day did not live up to what we had anticipated. We were tired and cranky, ready for a late afternoon nap.

And as we started to doze in the afternoon, the noises started again…

I’m not proud of the things we thought, did, and said in the hour that followed. We may have yelled abuse to an invisible enemy, banged walls, and had fantasies about what we would like to do to the perpetrator(s).

We gave up on our afternoon nap and ventured out yet again.

At some point we stood outside Edinburgh Castle.

We did not pay to go in, but in our defense, we had been into a lot of castles in recent weeks. Our decision may not have been purely influenced by our sleep deprivation and resultant moods.

We walked along Princes Street.

We ate. We looked at stuff.

It wasn’t all bad but in general a pall of sleep-deprived depression - and resentment - hung over us.

The next two nights were replicas of the first.

I had never seen my partner become red-hot angry until our Edinburgh experience. I thought that I had, but I really hadn’t.

We probably slept at some point, though. I don’t recall doing so, but the human body eventually takes what it needs, right?

When we checked out after three nights - long nights - it felt like we were leaving a prison.

I’m not going to mention the name of this less-than-salubrious establishment.

Not to protect them. Hell, no. But for legal reasons I’d prefer not to.

I’ve been looking at some of the online reviews for it from the period we were there.

Incredibly there are a few that say how great it is (the couple on reception ‘self-reviewing’ perhaps?).

Most reviews match our experience and go far further in their criticism.

One simply starts ‘Bed bugs. Bed bugs. Bed bugs’.

Others: ‘One of the worst places’; ‘The worst place I’ve ever stayed in!’ and many similar.

An extract from a lengthy (and damning) review: ‘I spent one hell of a night in this hotel. The bed linen looks like it was bought in the 18th century … the reception guy has zero percent of hospitality’.

Or ‘I would give this place 0 stars if I could’.

Or simply: ‘Don’t go’.

My favorite summarized our experience: ‘There was something a little wrong with everything here’.

We all have our travel stories and experiences, I’m sure. With the benefit of hindsight and the passing of time, the stories can provide amusing anecdotes to a captive audience. There is a delayed benefit of a bad experience, after all.

But I’m reminded when I think back to those 3 nights to take more care when booking a place. It is not all about price, but if the price is low, perhaps take more care, if possible, to look at reviews.

I think that I already suspected that dreadful accommodation could taint a holiday experience.

Our stay in Edinburgh confirmed that for me.