My husband and I, and my two older teen-aged children stayed at Gerald’s Place for 5 days during the second week of June 2008. We loved Edinburgh, it is a beautiful city! What made our visit more than special, however, was our stay at Gerald’s Place. As has been mentioned before, the reason Gerald’s Place is so special is the owner himself, Gerald. Gerald is a treasure! After a hectic train trip from London we were weary and tired. Gerald welcomed us with open arms and open heart (and also a lovely bottle of wine and a large box of delicious chocolates as well).

It is hard to know where to begin as there are so many wonderful things to point out. Let me start with Gerald’s lovely B & B. It is on a quiet street in the New Town area of Edinburgh and across the street are the lovely Queen St. Gardens. It is within a short walk of Princes St and beyond. Gerald has his own lovely “garden” full of pretty flowers and plants in quaint containers that make his entrance so charming! The guest rooms themselves are beyond comfortable…I wished I could take his mattresses home with us…they were so plush and comfy that we were reluctant to wake up in the morning. Each room has a tea tray with everything you need to make tea, coffee, or cappuccino along with packets of delicious shortbread which are replaced each day. There is a small refrigerator in each room stocked with organic milk (delicious!) and filtered water. One of the bedrooms is ensuite, while other has a bathroom that is right next to the bedroom and both are absolutely spotlessly clean. Both bedrooms have new “state of the art” flat screen televisions with many channels. The bathrooms have excellent power showers and all the toiletries one could possibly ever need. There is a laptop available for guest use which was invaluable to us in planning our daily activities and for checking in with our airline the day we left.

One of the major highlights of a stay at Gerald’s Place is the breakfast. We have never been fed so well in our entire lives! Gerald offers organic mueslis and cereals, hot oatmeal, fresh fruit and yogurt, home made fruit smoothies and juices and that is only the beginning! He also gave us a lovely hot breakfast as well with scrambled eggs, bacon (Scottish-style), sausages, beans, grilled tomatoes, and on request, Gerald offers such delicacies as black pudding and haggis among others! He also offers wonderful toast from bread that is baked especially for him. All this along with tea, coffee, and wonderful marmalades and jams….we rarely needed to eat again for hours afterward! Gerald is very flexible about breakfast times and really went above and beyond the call of duty every day that we stayed with him. He sent us off on more than one day when we had a very early tour with extra muffins and bananas.

Another plus…Gerald is an absolute font of information on Edinburgh and the surrounding area. He gave us an overview of the city and many of its attractions by email before we even arrived which was extremely helpful. He will arrange restaurant reservations, and has bus passes and tour passes available for purchase (which saved us a lot of time and hassle).

There are lots of “nice” B & B’s out there, but in our experience, none have the personal touch that Gerald’s Place has. We would absolutely recommend it to anyone considering a stay in Edinburgh…it is truly a wonderful experience!