Sunday, March 27, 2011

She Sells Seashells by the Seashore




I apologize for not having blogged in nearly two months. Things in Edinburgh are going so well that it feels like home and with home comes routine. Unless you wanted me to become one of those self absorbed people who blogs about what type of coffee I order than it wouldn't have been that interesting for you to read. I've also been bogged down by essays and computer troubles, but now that the semester is officially over I have plenty of time to blog and things to blog about again. I say the semester is "over," but really I have a three week Easter break and then five exams. Fun stuff! But for now I'm catching up on sleep and sights I've missed around town like the topic of today's post, Portobello Beach.


No, the beach is not named after a mushroom, portbello translates to beautiful port in Italian. The beach is off of the Firth of Forth sea and located three miles from Edinburgh's city center.This makes for only about a hour walk today, but back in the 19th century the beach used to be quite the destination vacation spot. Wealthy Glaswegians would come up to take advantage of Turkish baths, amusement park, and the beautiful beach itself. However after WWII, Scots traveled to continental Europe to get their seaside fix and the tourism has been steadily declining ever since.

Today, Portobello is just another suburb of Edinburgh, albeit a very quaint one. The seashore still boasts an amusement park, classic fish and chips, and plenty of people and their pups frolicking around the beach. Even though it's far from comfortable swimming weather at this time of year, I can only imagine it would be nice retreat in the summer.

I plan on doing more local travels over break so look forward to more posts.



[It took a lot of willpower to not buy some chips]