Today we enjoyed the weekend sunshine and headed out to the Royal Botanic Garden which is just outside the city centre. I’ve wanted to go here for a while and the weather today made it an ideal time to go. Plus it’s amazingly free of charge, you only have to pay to go in the glasshouses, and there’s free parking on the weekends/evenings (or plenty of buses).

We only planned on stopping by for an hour, but ended up staying for longer, although we still only saw around a third of the gardens. We walked through the Chinese Hillside, Rock Garden and Herbaceous Border. There was a wedding reception at the Caledonian Hall opposite the Rock Garden and it looked beautiful, this was probably my favourite garden. There are views of Carlton Hill and Arthur’s Seat here, as well as a waterfall and of course lots of pretty flowers.

Behind the Herbaceous Border is a huge beech hedge, we walked through it to these little gardens where fruit and vegetables were growing. There were rows for local primary schools to grow their own too which was cute.

It felt like we were somewhere else, it was so peaceful and spacious yet so close to town. I could spend hours wandering around and lazing on the grass. We shall definitely be making future trips here and next time we’ll bring a picnic with us, or maybe indulge in an afternoon tea. Even if the weather’s bad we could pay to have a wander around the glasshouses.

Totally recommend this place if you’re in Edinburgh!

S. xo