Edinburgh, Scotland - Ocean Mist Leath Hotel and Cramond Beach - August 2024

Back to our travel posts for now. The next several posts will all be about a trip A and I took to Europe this past summer - I'll divide up notable sites for efficiency and cohesiveness.

A couple of years ago, A's class was invited to learn about a trip through the school overseas during the summer. We attended the meeting - the trip was to be the summer prior to her freshman year (this past summer), and would only be high schoolers. The trip sounded incredible - if I remember correctly, it was to be through Germany, Czech Republic, Poland, Luxemborg, Switzerland, and then fly home from Paris. It was going to be a huge whirlwind over the course of about 12 days, however, with not much personal exploration time - and only upperclassmen attended the informational meeting. The nail in the coffin, though, was that it was crazy expensive - I think it was, like, $7000. Since I had wanted to go with her, it would have been ridiculous. We gave her the option of doing it, or she could pick a destination (pending approval) for she and I to visit for a fraction of the price. She and I settled on a trip that included first visiting Edinburgh, Scotland, then to England to visit Bath and London. I loved London from the one day I'd spent there, and have a fair amount of Scottish and British ancestry, so I was entirely on board.

We flew first to Edinburgh on August 11, 2024. I'd asked A several times over the course of planning what types of things she wanted to do - she gave me some very loose structures and a few key places, but largely left it up to me to surprise her. I absolutely LOVE trip planning, I've done it for friends, so this was a fun challenge to surprise her with things she'd enjoy!

The first thing we did when we arrived was travel to go to our hotel to check in. I got us a hotel right on the ocean water in Leath, a former playboy's yacht that had been decommissioned and permanently docked as the Ocean Mist Leath hotel. We then visited Cramond Beach - be prepared for a history lesson in the captions.

A quaint view up the street.

The decks are now used for a bar and breakfast service.

The canal on which the Ocean Mist resides is in the docks right off of the ocean.

We were at the end of this hallway in the berth. The rooms and hallway were small as part of the nature of being a yacht.

You'll note the walls on either side of the bed - while the room was longer than it was wide, it was cozy by nature. However, the portal windows and water lapping were a great touch in the mornings when waking up.

When we stepped on Cramond Beach, we could see the Leath area of Edinburgh easily.

Visible from Cramond Beach is Barnbougle Castle, which I think is so delightfully Scottish-sounding. It is an event center now, so we couldn't go visit.

Visible here are anti-boat pylons that are leftover from World War II, located in the middle of the Fifth of Forth to repel an invasion via the Forth River. The island itself (more details on that in the next caption) is still littered with leftover concrete bunkers and gun emplacements. It's home to all kinds of graffiti now.

The island is also called "Cramond Ghost Island." We visited at low tide, so we could have walked all of the way out to the island on the pylons and walkway. However, once high tide comes in and covers up the walkway, it has left many people stranded until low tide comes again (barring a boat rescue). The tide times are posted on the beach to help remind visitors to not get caught.