What do you get when a kilt-wearing Scottish comedian leads you through Edinburgh? Sore stomach muscles from laughing and moments wondering whether cobblestone streets were Edinburgh’s idea of a practical joke.
Renowned for steep hills and uneven cobblestoned mediaeval streets, Edinburgh is not on the top of the list of accessible destinations. However, Edinburgh surprised me and very quickly became one of my favourite cities on our trip.
An absolute highlight of our Edinburgh visit was the Mountebank Comedy Tour. This is a walking tour led by a kilt-wearing Scottish comedian/historian who managed to combine history, culture, audience participation, and rapid-fire jokes into an entertaining afternoon stroll through the city.
Read on to find out more about our hilariously historical Edinburgh experience.
Why I chose a comedy tour
Walking tours are my favourite way of exploring cities, especially when you only have a few hours visiting.
Many of the Edinburgh walking tours were not wheelchair accessible. And to be honest, a lot of the tours looked boring. I like a bit of history, but many of these tours gave off high school history class vibes.
I struck gold when I found Mountebank Comedy Tours of Edinburgh. The 2-hour comedy walking tour is run by Daniel Downie, a kilt-wearing Scottish stand-up comedian and historian – the perfect mix of funny and informative.
This tour checked a lot of boxes for me:
- ☑ The website had good information about wheelchair accessibility on the tour.
- ☑ The tour visited all the places I wanted to see (many others didn’t).
- ☑ It looked like a lot of fun. As a group comedy tour, you knew there was going to be audience participation and a lot of laughs.
- ☑ Daniel’s tour sidekick is a dog named Brahan (a.k.a. the Bonnie Prince – a huge selling point for us dog lovers!
The Mountebank Comedy Tour
We met Daniel and our tour group outside the Monkey Barrel Comedy Club. Although, we were devastated that we didn’t get our dog fix – Brahan was on holiday with his grandparents.
We very quickly got over our devastation and were laughing within seconds. It was like being at a stand-up comedy show. After 2 hours, my cheeks and stomach hurt from laughing so much.
Daniel started the tour by learning names and information about each group member. He then wittily provided quick comebacks poking fun at our nationalities and occupation. Audience participation was some of the funniest parts of the tour.
My favourite poke at us was when Daniel suddenly paused when describing a famous book, looked at us and said “I need to slow this down for the Australians. Okay Australians, there’s this thing called a book…” before launching into a convict joke with perfect comedic timing!
Strolling through Edinburgh, Daniel stopped us at landmarks and gave us a hilarious retelling of Scottish history– from the history of Edinburgh Castle and Royal families, Jacobite risings, to Susan Boyle.
We got some fun facts about the Scottish flag, why unicorns are the National animal of Scotland, and got a preview of Daniel’s Edinburgh fringe Festival comedy routine about kilts.
On the tour, we visited the Royal Mile, High Street, Gladstone’s Land, Tron Kirk, Parliament Square, Mercat Cross, St Giles’ Cathedral, Grass Market, James Court, Victoria Street, Johnson Terrace, finishing up at Greyfriars Kirkyard.
There were many moments when we cried from laughing so much. However, we also had a teary moment at the end of the tour where we learned the sad story of Greyfriars Bobby, a cute little terrier that spent 14 years guarding the grave of his owner.
Who should NOT do the comedy tour
As a comedy tour, the age limit is strictly 16+ as some of the content and language is not PG.
Daniel dropped the F*** bomb multiple times a minute, claiming swearing is a form of Scottish pronunciation, used similar to an adjective for describing… pretty much everything.
You need to have a good sense of humour. Daniel’s jokes never got personal or targeted individuals’ appearance, focusing more on jokes about historical figures, guests’ nationalities and occupations.
There is a lot of audience participation on the tour! Daniel is a loud Scotsman, who throughout the tour would yell out our names and ask questions. Adding extra laughs to our tour, he got my name mixed up, so I spent the tour answering to “Caitlin”.
As Australians, we love a good laugh and poking fun of ourselves, so loved the tour. However, there were a handful of 1-star reviews on Trip Advisor from people who were probably expecting a more traditional history tour.
Note: this tour has been awarded best tour on Trip Advisor several years running, with a current five-star rating! He also does a whiskey tasting tour that has a five-star rating.
Finally, if you are not a dog person, this tour probably isn’t for you. But seriously, who couldn’t love the handsome Bonnie Prince?
Old Town Edinburgh
Old Town, which is old (obviously), has medieval architecture, feels dark and mysterious with hidden alleyways, and is built on top of a volcanic crag (rock).
At the end of the tour, Daniel stayed around to provide tips for other places to visit in Edinburgh and places to grab lunch.
Like most of the Edinburgh walking tours, the Comedy Tour doesn’t go inside Edinburgh Castle. However, you get a good look from the outside. Many people book Castle tours/entrance after the walking tours instead. We chose to visit Stirling Castle (about one hour away), as Stirling Castle is older and has some great accessibility features.
Before visiting Edinburgh, I was not aware that Edinburgh has a huge system of underground tunnels and vaults. These can only be accessed via guided tours but unfortunately are not wheelchair accessible.
Something I wish we had time to visit was the Surgeon’s Hall Museum. This museum is housed in a beautiful building and showcases the gruesome history of surgery, with a huge collection of preserved human specimens. To me, it sounded revoltingly gory but equally fascinating!
New town Edinburgh
After our tour, we had a nice stroll through New Town Edinburgh.
New Town is the new part of town (obviously), built in the 18th century, is on flat ground, has architecture and features symmetrical streets, and wide, open spaces and gardens.
The Princes’ Street area has some lovely gardens and green areas and is home to several museums and galleries. We took some time strolling through the gardens and passed by the Scott Monument.
From here, you get an amazing view looking up towards Old Town.
New Town is essentially the modern part of Edinburgh, with lots of boutique and shopping options. We stopped for a quick lunch break at the Waverley Station food court before our tour.
Edinburgh Accessibility
As I said above, Edinburgh is renowned for being on top of a steep rocky hill and full of cobblestone streets. However, don’t be turned off visiting in a wheelchair just yet.
Getting up to Old Town does involve some steep streets, which I handled fine in my power wheelchair – using the tilt/recline function to centre balance on the downhill as well. Someone in a manual wheelchair might need some assistance.
I’m not going to lie, the cobblestones in Old Town truly sucked and were among some of the worst I’ve experienced.
Technically, they are not cobblestones at all, but “stone setts”, which are brick-sized stones that are worn away with big gaps between them. I would argue these are worse than cobblestones!
For me, this equated to high-frequency shuddering across every bump that continuously sent my muscles into spasm. As someone who has limited diaphragm muscles, regular breaks were needed to catch my breath and brace myself for the next section of bumps. It was a full body workout!
The worst sections were along the Royal Mile, Victoria Street, and Grassmarket. Thankfully, some smoother parts ran along the edges, although these were often packed with slow-moving tourists.
The curb cutouts were reasonably steep, but at least most intersections were okay to cross in my wheelchair.
After bumping around for hours in Old Town, New Town was a dream! The smooth, modern pavements felt like driving on silk!
Comedy Walking Tour Accessibility
I was impressed by the accessibility on the Mountebank comedy walking tour.
It’s always a good sign when a website provides details about wheelchair access. The Mountebank Tour website includes a section in the FAQs about wheelchair access. Daniel does ask that you do reach out when booking with any specific accessibility requirements, so that he can accommodate those as best as possible.
Despite Old Town Edinburgh being riddled with steep and rough stone streets, Daniel did a fantastic job on the tour of creating an accessible route on the tour. Wherever possible, he took us along flat sidewalks, down some smoother streets, or we went just a little bit further down the block to find a good curb cut out for us.
With me bumping along and needing a few breaks, he also kept a good pace to make sure I wasn’t left behind – in fact, at most stops I still ended up being one of the first to gather round, as many of the other people on the tour were straggling along and chatting amongst themselves.
Getting to and around Edinburgh
Originally, we had planned on splitting our stay between Glasgow and Edinburgh. But with these only being 1-1.5 hours apart, we instead saved time packing, basing ourselves in a holiday rental just outside of Glasgow, doing day trips Edinburgh, Stirling, and the Trossachs National Park.
Edinburgh, particularly Old Town, is not a fun place to drive. Between the steep and narrow alleyways, restricted traffic areas, and tourists wandering like lost sheep, I could picture us* getting lost and having to reverse down narrow, steep, one-way streets (*based on previous experience in Italy).
To save a lot of stress (and let’s be real, family arguments over directions), we decided to use Edinburgh’s excellent public transport system.
We drove to the Ingliston Park-And-Ride, next to Edinburgh airport. Here, we parked our van in the open-air car park for the day for just a few pounds.
The tram from the park-and-ride is fully wheelchair accessible, with flat, step-free entrance onto the tram and wheelchair spaces on board. This was a relaxing trip into the city with a nice view of the suburbs.
A 35-minute tram ride took us from the park-and-ride into the centre of Edinburgh, where we jumped off in Princes Street. From here, it was a 10-minute stroll up the hill into Old Town.
In Old Town, the main options for getting around, other than wheeling, would be to use a black cab, city buses (which lower for boarding and have wheelchair spaces), or tourist hop on hop off buses.
Ratings
I was surprised by how much I loved Edinburgh! Although we only spent a few hours there, the city had a homely feel to it. I would absolutely love to go back and spend more time there.
Even the steep hills and bumpy streets were not enough to make me dislike Edinburgh. I wouldn’t trade them for the charm and history that they provided – short-term pain for long-term memories.
Wow Factor: 5/5. Edinburgh was so much more beautiful than I expected! The comedy tour was a real highlight of our UK trip.
Cobble index: 1/5. It is steep, it is rough, but even with a one-star cobble rating, I would visit Old Town again! New Town on the other hand gets a 4/5 cobble index.
Barrier Free Barometer: 3/5. The Mountebank Walking Tour was about as accessible as you could get in Old Town Edinburgh. Points are lost for Old Town, but it can’t help being old. Saying that, Edinburgh Castle, museums, and other tourist attractions had some good accessible features and bathrooms. New Town also is more barrier free, with more modern streets, transport, and facilities.
Want more
For more travel tips and accessible destination check out some related posts:
A wheelchair friendly self-drive road trip in the UK and Ireland
How to get around London (in wheelchair)
Bath in a Wheelchair: from Roman baths to Jane Austen
What is so special about North Wales? Wheelchair accessible road trip
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