Edinburgh mooching

xDottore

have a few spare hours in central Edinburgh tomorrow. Any good Guitar shops to check out?

thanks

UnclePsychosis

There are some good ones but nothing great.

Red Dog music is very central and normally has a decent selection although not normally anything revolutionary. 

GuitarGuitar is out of the city centre past the zoo on the way to the airport. It's a good shop but a bit out of the way for casual browsers. 

 Scayles Music and its sister shop Live Music are right next to each other in Newington. Live Music sometimes has interesting second hand gear in.

What I would say,  as someone who works in Edinburgh, is that (unless you live somewhere where you never get to go to guitar shops) there are far better things to do in one of the world's greatest cities than go browsing for guitars.

Have fun! 

camf

^^^^^ This.

RandallFlagg

After that go to The Edinburgh Gin Distillery 1a Rutland Place, it's superb but you will have a headache the next day when the hammer comes!

thomasross20

+1 I wouldn't go out of the way (to be honest, in any town unless there was a Peach or so nearby) in any city just for a guitar shop unless it had something specific at that one store.

Moe_Zambeek

camf said:

^^^^^ This.

^^^^^^that.

Not much worth seeing, Guitarguitar may be OK but it's out of town a bit. Red Dog is uninspiring, Scayles is like a smaller less interesting Red Dog, and Live Music - last time I went in anyway - wins the crown for least friendly music shop ive been in, ever...and I have visited Denmark Street. 

Go to Camera Obscura or something, there are lots of interesting attractions worth a couple of hours exploring

webrthomson

RandallFlagg said:

After that go to The Edinburgh Gin Distillery 1a Rutland Place, it's superb but you will have a headache the next day when the hammer comes!

^ This - do the tasting tour it's great fun

https://www.edinburghgin.com/distilleries-and-tours

Oh and Red Dog is okay for a browse too.

xDottore

Thanks for all suggestions. Sadly, I'm dry now, having come a bit too close to "not dry". I just think to myself, if Tom Waits can do it, I can ;-)  

Will probably do lots of that Art. Saw a brilliant exhibition of surrealist art there about  10 years ago. Very, very good.  

stimpsonslostson

Dottore said:

Thanks for all suggestions. Sadly, I'm dry now, having come a bit too close to "not dry". I just think to myself, if Tom Waits can do it, I can ;-)  

Will probably do lots of that Art. Saw a brilliant exhibition of surrealist art there about  10 years ago. Very, very good.  

The Modern Art Galleries near Dean Village are great, there's a free bus to/from the National Gallery at the bottom of The Mound. 
If the weather is decent I'd suggest Stockbridge/New Town & the Botanical Gardens- I prefer it to the Old Town/City Centre. 

Cabicular

The portrait gallery sells great cake

stimpsonslostson

Cabicular said:

The portrait gallery sells great cake

Have you tried Pastry Selection on Stockbridge high street? Their peanut butter and chocolates brownies are AMAZING! 

thomasross20

I'm actually rarely in Edinburgh itself these days! If it's decent weather, can't go wrong just walking around.. princes st gardens, grassmarket etc

Kalimna

Do Red Dog do Hamstead amps? For some reason i have it in my head that they do. That might be a reason to visit them.

Adam

Moe_Zambeek

Kalimna said:

Do Red Dog do Hamstead amps? For some reason i have it in my head that they do. That might be a reason to visit them.

Adam

Last time I was in they had an artist combo nestled incongruously in the corner.

xDottore

Well, I had a great time just mooching around. Weather favoured us so took lots of photos before realising autofocus had slipped to manual without my noticing…. Went to National Gallery. Wow! A Leonard, three Raphaels, the largest Claude I've ever seen, Daddi (cool), Rembrandt, even a Vermeer I walked straight past. And a monster depiction of the Dutch surrender at the Battle of Camperdown, complete with exploding men-o'-war in the background. Daughter likes the place very much — we were on university open day trip along with about 5,000 other parents and offspring. But, wow, is it busy. 

To keep on guitar topic, I visited Red Dog. OK if a little uninspiring. Didn't notice any Hamstead amps, but they had a pair of lovely Princetons in there.

Thank you Edinburgh. You were great.

xDottore

Oh, and thanks for all the suggestions. Very helpful.

Legionreturns

Not sure if you're into biking, but there's a lovely loop you can do starting near the airport. Head west and cross the Kinkardine Bridge, the head back east on the north side of the river until you get to the Forth road bridge. Cross that to get you back to the airport. Lovely way to spend a few hours, passing through some lovely little villages and gets you up nice and high for spectacular views in the first half. Admittedly it's a bit more than a mooch, but dead easy after those early hills. Did this last year on the Tour de Forth.  

thomasross20

I need to get to the national gallery, haven't been for years!

AuldReekie

Dottore said:

 — we were on university open day trip along with about 5,000 other parents and offspring. 

Whats your daughter planning to study?

UnclePsychosis

Great city to be a student. Great Uni. Would be a good choice :-)

stimpsonslostson

UnclePsychosis said:

Great city to be a student. Great Universities. Would be a good choice :-)

Fixed that for you...
(I'm hoping I'm correct as I'm moving from Edinburgh to Heriot Watt in a couple of months!)