Doubleheader Day in Edinburgh

One of the difficulties with planning a sports trip is trying to determine all of the possible sporting events that one could attend. This is why I always buy a local newspaper when I arrive in the country I am visiting.

My original plan for today was to attend the Premier League match between Hull City and Liverpool at Anfield. However, last night as I was sitting at The Hiding Place, I pulled out my fixtures for the week. While reviewing the league schedules, I realized there were two events I could attend in Edinburgh today – the Hearts Scottish Premier League soccer match and a rugby match between Leinster and Edinburgh at Murrayfield. I chose Edinburgh over Liverpool for multiple reasons:

1) I have never attended a Scottish Premier League match.
2) I have never attended a match at Murrayfield – home of Scottish rugby.
3) The train from Newcastle to Edinburgh was a short 90 minutes while the train to Liverpool was over 4 hours.
4) I wanted to attend the English Premier League match on Sunday in Sunderland meaning I needed to take the train back to Newcastle from wherever I was Saturday (90 minutes from Edinburgh vs. 4 hours from Liverpool)
5) I figured tickets two both events in Edinburgh would be cheaper than the one match at Anfield.

Thus after making this change of plans I needed to rebook my Manchester hotel for the weekend and book one night in a hostel in Edinburgh. First, rebooking my hotel in Manchester was easy since I had booked a cancelable room (always allow for cancellations in your reservations just in case). I changed the reservation from arriving on Saturday morning, September 26 to arriving on Sunday night, September 27. Second, booking a hostel in Edinburgh was easy as well but I was not sure on where I wanted to stay. I ended up booking the Edinburgh Backpackers hostel since 1) It was recommended in Let’s Go, 2) the hotels in Edinburgh were more expensive and 3) it was “ensuite” meaning there was a bathroom in the room and not down the hall.