Christmas on a winter's George St in Edinburgh 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Hello Hello Hivians

I was in Edinburgh this week and the weather most definitely is winterish as it is chilly af but so the winter decorations and tourist gimmicks are in full flow.

I grew up in Edinburgh and boy oh boy how it has changed.

Anyway wrap up warm and let's go along George St that runs parallel to the main street Princes St.

Tis tree season!

Maybe I am getting sentimental as I get older. In Scotland it was always New Year that we celebrated far more than Christmas.

At New Year you would first foot people's houses at all hours of the morning, now that is a thing of the past.

So I like Christmas trees, and we even had our decorations up before the 1st of December.

But we are here for a little walk from St Andrew's Square in Edinburgh along George Street and see some of the Winter Exhibits and Christmas decorations!

One thing people might not know about Edinburgh is just how hilly it is! People say Edinburgh is the Athens of the North because of the architecture!

I say it is more Rome of the North due to both capital cities being on so many fluffing hills!

Although you can see the sea. My beloved sea!

So we are at the posh corner of town as you can see from this shop window..

Do you own any real Louis Vuitton gear? Not the knock off type!

On the left of the picture is the bus station and I used to get a bus there every weekday from the ages of 5 to 10. It was nothing like it is now! It used to pubs and a rough af area!

Now you have upmarket shops like Havey Nicols and their red christmas trees.

Nipping across the road we go into the square itself which gets transformed for Christmas as we shall see....

Mind you all the noisy people in the world won't wake up some animals!

The first of many winter type wooden stalls!

Therapy dog 🦌

Although I was more interested in the cute wee greyhound with antlers!

Santa's 🎅 Letter ✉️ Writing ✍️ Station!

As we do write a lot on Hive, I was tempted to write a letter to Santa...

But according to @deraaa I am on his naughty list!!!

Of course being on the nautghty list means getting kicked out of Santa's Winter Garden!

Oh.... The shame 😭

You can see it is a dreich winter's day, although I missed the rain, it was raining before I got to Edinburgh and just as I was leaving!

Here you can the winter maze made of fir christmas trees ...

Do you recognise anyone on the bench?

Paddington on his way back from Peru!

As we walk along George Street you can we are on a summit of a hill and it slopes back down to Princes St and the Scott Monument is in full flow.

But what else do you see high up in the air?

Well this is were Santa's puts his naught list, what do you think @deraaa an @jhymi have two girls been flung up high and around like that!

We still have a few of the old fashioned red telephone booths dotted around the country, and as you can see we have two next to each other on George St.

Tourists often pose in them for pictures!

All the way along George St we have these tall white Christmas trees in the centre divider.

Now we have building Christmas decorations!

Pretty cute and never happened back in my school days!

There are even gorgeous red bows all over the place!

The InterContinetal hotel looking resplendant decked out in greenery and flags. Always was a popular hotel with Americans and you can see the Stars and Stripes fluttering!

All the intersecting roads from Princes St to George St have statues and here we see a commemoration for when George IV visited Scotland.

Edinburgh oozes historic charm and the buildings are out of this world. The museum you see I am pretty sure is still free to enter.

Here we have the Assmbly Rooms which is most famous now for comedy as it is huge venue during the Edinburgh Fringe in August.

One good things is the skirting for the trees is a colourful and tells you where you are!

Was going to snap the Castle but the motorcycle cop photobombed the pic!

This ride only turned up this week.

And I am sure it was at a request of parents who went for a cheeky drink in the Polat Bar tent!

I did say at the beginning of the post that tis the season for trees!

So no tree this time but they boxed off the planter. Not sure why...

.... get ready though....

Yes another tree and a great view of Edniburgh Castle, which really was just a troop garrison, but can you imagine trying to capture it by climbing up the rock?

Ok so almost at the end of George Street now...

Can you guess what this white building holds?

Maybe this gives you a clue?

The red was the machine that smooths the ice, it is a winter ice rink!

And we are at the end of George St this time in Charlotte Square.

I love the statue and it is for Prince Albert who was of course Queen Victoria's consort.

I should really come back at night and see how good the lights are!

We end our walk today at St John's cathedral on Princes St.

We are at the West End of Princes St and down below is the Prince St gardens winter rides.

But we end with a view of above the winter gardens.