Weekly Walk #5 My Not So Romantic Valentines Retreat

Quite a lot of people take valentines retreats for long romantic weekends, and I suppose that's what my recent holiday looked like, besides the fact me and my girlfriend had booked without valentines in mind. In our not so romantic approach to our holiday, we took my weekly walk to Arthur's Seat.

I'd looked over directions from the net and had a good idea of where I wanted to go, but found my directions started over the Salisbury Crags and not the alternative summit path I had in mind. I went with my gut, and took the path to the right of the summit path up a grassy slope heading steeply upwards.

We soon found great views over Edinburgh as we continued up a rocky section towards the top. We kept in as the path split off, and climbed steep stairs heading left through a pass in the hillside, which looked a bit like the stairs to Sheloab's Lair in the Lord of the Rings.

We re-connected with the summit path and reached a plateau overlooking Leith. A friendly Scotsman passed in his kilt as he completed the walk for charity, and bid us farewell as we took the short walk to the summit, which had hand-rails to steady us against the wind. The final section was relatively steep but offered great views of the distant snowy mountains. I even got a bird to pose.

After a short rest, we continued down the other side of the summit and across an open section to zig-zagging stairs. I picked up my pace as I skipped my way down to the road at the base.

Instead of taking the easy volunteer path, we ascended again up the Salisbury Crags. The slope was steep and quite slippy, but once again gave spectacular views on the other side of Edinburgh.

The path descended gradually to the start of the summit path where we had begun. We headed back to the Royal Mile and warmed up over a Turkish Coffee, a slightly more romantic end to our hill climb.