EDINBURGH XMAS MARKET 2022

It's currently snowing as I type this. I'm one of those people who loves the look of snow but actually hates having to go out and do anything in snow. Once it turns to slush ice, I'm outta there.

The morning of our family trip to Edinburgh's Christmas market was anxiety filled and fast paced since we all slept in. Our alarms were set for 6.45am, as our train left at 9.13am. More than enough time to get ready and go to the train station. Nope. Big fat nopity nope. We all woke up at around 8.25am. I had slept through my alarm and my partner nor his child had put on alarms. 

So we did a mad dash around the house, throwing on clothes, I threw my camera, makeup and makeup remover into my bag, forgetting my gloves etc and left my hair as was, there was NO TIME to even brush it. We ordered a taxi, luckily it came within 3 mins of ordering because we were on a very tight schedule and got to the train station at 9am on the dot. That left us with 10 mins to grab tickets and find seats. Oh so we thought. Our tickets would not print out and the app I used didn't give us e-tickets. Bollocks. We didn't have time to find the travel office so off we went. I had read my email wrong and thought there was a coach K but there wasn't a coach with that letter. We hopped on anyway into one of the carriages which was rammed with people all heading to Edinburgh. We couldn't even get a seat even if we tried. Even the pathways were blocked. It turns out, after reading my reservations, we were in coach C, but we were currently standing in coach D. My anxiety had calmed by this point. I was on the train, it didn't matter I couldn't get to my seat. But now I looked like a wreck, last nights makeup residue still on my face, hair all over the place. 

After 2 hours, we finally arrived in Edinburgh. The area was covered in snow and also slush. My shoes were about to turn into ice skates, so off to New Look around the corner from the train station so I could get some new boots to stop me from falling on my arse. We also warmed ourselves up with a good old KFC. Where I quickly cleaned my face and put on some new make-up, shoving on my new boots ready to take on the rest of the day.

 As soon as I looked over to Edinburgh Castle while walking along Princes Street, I was awed by how magical it looked. Everything was dusted in snow. 

 

The street was packed, I knew Saturday would be busy but wow it was BIZAAAAY. We made our way to the fountain side of the park and started from there after our little detour into a mini market place up one of the streets across the park. A few family's were in the middle of making snowmen, and one snowman was built on a ledge for passers by. The fountain side had Santa Land, which was full of cute rides, they had a few food stalls and the Christmas tree maze, which I wanted to do but the booking online was weird and we didn't have time in the end. I definitely want to come back next year and do the maze. We missed quite a few things out, not realizing they were hidden around. I wish they had better signs everywhere.

As we only had from 11am till 7pm before our train arrived we quickly headed off to have a look around and get a nice hot choccy to drink while having a look at the market. We stopped off at a cute little stall that was selling hot drinks and sweet snacks. I opted for a Nutella Hot Chocolate for £4. I was so disappointed. It was tiny and didn't even have the slightest hint of Nutella. My partner got white hot chocolate and Izzy got a biscoff hot chocolate which was quite frankly, disgusting. I love Biscoff. But that drink was terrible. £12 down the drain. But on the bright side, it did magically snow while we were sipping on our hot drinks. Looking out at Edinburgh castle, while it snowed and Christmas music playing in the background, was stunning.

We took off past the gardens and into the actual market. It was jam packed with people but lots of lovely stalls selling everything from jewellery, baubles and accessories. Plenty of food and drink stalls. Although most of them seem to be German sausage stalls. It would have been nice to see more food stalls that were different. At this point the snow had turned into rain so we were all looking like drowned rats. 

 

My partner had snagged himself a "Redbull" bottle cap sign and Izzy got a few pieces of jewellery. I hadn't found anything that took my fancy in the markets. 

The queue for the ferris wheel was long so we decided to come back to it, unfortunately by the time we did, we didn't even have time to queue up and go on it, there seemed to be more people now it had gotten darker, than during the day. We didn't even find the carousel. I was gutted. But we made it to a stall that sold weird looking pizzas and I wish I had gotten a photo of what Tony and Izzy had bought from there. In the end I never did buy any food from the market but I did buy an Edinburgh bauble to commemorate our day out. Despite being in a time scale, I still had a lovely time out and felt very festive. I do recommend visiting this market if you are in Edinburgh for the winter holidays.