[Closed] What's Edinburgh like as a place to live?

Best place In the world 🙂

Climate is dry and sunny but cold.

Beautiful city to live in but expensive

Riding is OK - the Pentlands are just to the south of the city and have some fine riding - but nowt spectacular. Tweed valley is less than an hours drive, an hour or two up into the highlands.

consistently comes out well in surveys as a place to live and IIRC came out as the best place in the UK for MTBers to live.

It's ace.

It's too far south.

Fantastic cosmopolitan city.
Big student, gap year type travellers (kiwis, ozzies etc) and young professional population so good social scene and a nice feel to the city.
Lots going on in terms of comedy, theatre, music gigs, shows etc.
Some really good areas to live in the city too. Wide range of shops and services etc.
Location is fantastic.
Close to the highlands for serious outdoor enthusiasts.
Handy for sailing, climbing, kayaking whatever is your sport
Handy to 7 stanes and local routes on pentlands. Plus close enough to the lakes or highlands if you want big adventures.

All in all I think a great place to live. However if your English be prepared for lots of Scottish anti English sentiment

if your English be prepared for lots of Scottish anti English sentiment

in edinburgh? hardly! the imagined threat is always greater than the real (been here 5 years and a half years with no stress)

Are the trams a good way to get around the city?

RRD - Member
....if your English be prepared for lots of Scottish anti English sentiment

....if your English be prepared for getting the pi55 taken and have an armoury of suitable responses. I don't know any Scots who actually hate the English apart from those who also hate everyone else as well.

greatest city in the world (not that I'm biased or anything!!). Do no under any circumstances mention the trams to the locals!

What's wrong with the trams? I thought they were up and running by now.

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Interesting. I didn't say "threat" I said anti English sentiment. I'll quantify. I'm not English but IMO have observed many scots express anti English sentiment.

You also need to be able to keep Wednesday evenings free!

And I can recommend "Silence of the Trams" on you tube.

the ladies are welcoming IME

It's rubbish, don't come here.

[the above statement may contain a lie]

I also may have the option of moving to Glasgow. Which city is better?

Edinburgh is ok, but I can't recommend cycling in the city - the bus and taxi drivers seem so have selective blindness where cyclists are concerned 😕

I also may have the option of moving to Glasgow. Which city is better?

You wouldn't be able to know without trying both, you'll find people who'll swear either is best. The attractions of Edinburgh are more obvious, its pretty, lots going on entertainment wise, its small.

Glasgow is bigger and it takes more time to discover the best bits and the longer you spend time there the more it rewards, however the appeal isn't as obvious on a daytrip. By contrast Edinburgh is very accessible, but being quite a small place and with a lot of it being touristy/superficial you can run out of things to discover quite quickly, and the smallness can perhaps start to make it feel cramped.

In many senses Edinburgh is the showpiece, Glasgow is where the real work gets done.

I've tried both and with hindsight If i wasn't expecting to live in a city for a long time I'd choose edinburgh, if I was I'd choose glasgow, both cities' main charm from my point of view is that you can escape from the city to the countryside very quickly.

Great place + good riding nearby. I still have an empty flat there at the moment - need a place to rent/buy?!

I also may have the option of moving to Glasgow. Which city is better?

Glasgow.

Edinburgh's all fur coat & no knickers. And you [b]really[/b] don't want to ask anyone who lives there about the trams (bro' lives in Leith & reckons everyone in W Lothian could have had free bus travel for 12 years for what they've cost and they're not even running yet)

Andy

(DOI: Glaswegian)

...if your English be prepared for getting the pi55 taken and have an armoury of suitable responses. I don't know any Scots who actually hate the English apart from those who also hate everyone else as well.

+1. Usually its the village-idiot types who hate any perceived 'outsiders'. Rochdale they hate anyone non-white. Same the world over..

Edinburgh is stunning and amazing. Have friends who live there and love it. The bars/pubs and some restaurants are lush.

This would be my local if I lived in Edinburgh 😀 :

http://www.bestpubs.co.uk/layout0.asp?pub=105789

I know loads of Scots & none of them hate the English - a good few of them think the English hate them though 😕

Its got a pub and a shop, what more do you want?

What about bike shops? Any decent ones?

Don't worry about anti-English sentiment in Edinburgh. All of the nice bits are full of English people anyway or those posh Scots who have the good grace to speak with English accents. 😛

And you really don't want to ask anyone who lives there about the trams (bro' lives in Leith & reckons everyone in W Lothian could have had free bus travel for 12 years for what they've cost and they're not even running yet)

I know someone working on getting it up and running, considering it costs the taxpayer two hundred million a year to fund free bus travel for the over sixties in Scotland, I think 545million for something that will be around for decades is a small price.

I'd move there if I got the chance.

the ladies are welcoming IME

SFB has just booked a ticket I hear...

What about bike shops? Any decent ones?

That's the only real problem. No decent bike shopes there. At all. None. No chains, no cooperatives, nothing.

😉

Edinburgh is full of folk from all over the place, which is just as well as us locals are a pretty miserable bunch TBH!!!The anti-englishness mentioned above is just the same as the anti Welsh/French/German nonsense that you'll be used to hearing down south.
Wasn't Jimmy Shand from Auchtermuchty....yup, you'll have to work at pronouncing that one!!!LOL!!

Who is Jimmyshand?
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It's like wanna be london with less ethnic types and Scottish Accents 😆

I've lived in Edinburgh for 13years and love it. Would choose Edinburgh to live in and Glasgow for the shopping.

Scottish version of Brighton, got a castle instead of the pavillion and both have crap footie teams

Stoppit right now!

What parts of Edinburgh should I avoid?

More a case of which is the poshest part of town you can afford to live in!!
South side of town a half hour closer to the riding; I guess the best value OK place to stay there would be Buckstone which is 1970s suburbia.
Leith in the north side of town has some nice old flats and great places to eat though the local widlife of the two legged variety can be a bit irritating!

Wasn't Jimmy Shand from Auchtermuchty....yup, you'll have to work at pronouncing that one!!!LOL!!

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