After I returned from VA and the hottest humidest weather ever I did a quick turn around and about 10 days later Laura and I left for Scotland.
We headed up to the cities and parked in a hotel parking lot which worked out really well—close to the airport and very inexpensive as far as parking goes. Cheaper than us taking a shuttle up and back too. I don’t mind the shuttle up but I can NOT shuttle back after hours on an airplane. No and all the nopes.
But I digress. We did our thing and flew to Newark where we waited for our flight to Scotland
And off we went. We landed in the rain at the Edinburgh airport and hit the ground running—after we found our drivers. Since we arrived early in the AM we didn’t have a room so we checked in, dropped our luggage, got a map, set up my phone, and took off to the streets of Edinburgh.
We had some goals in mind and with the list on my phone we started our quests.
We started on Princes Street and wandered through Princes Gardens. There were lovely and we started to realize that the Scottish people LOVE their statues.
Walking down the lane…
And admiring the statues…..
The Ross Fountain
We had some nice views of Edinburgh Castle, a place we were to visit the next day…but more about that later….
And at the end of the park was the Scott Monument—and we were determined to climb up. Sadly, not opened yet so we back tracked and hit the Gallery-
There were so many beautiful paintings there-a Van Gogh
This is Wooded Landscape by Meindert Hobbema, 1662
I thought I had taken many more pictures but apparently I didn’t! I can’t say enough about the paintings though. I love the landscape artists.
After that we returned to the Scott Monument and climbed right up to the top-
It was Awesome!
We headed down and walked up to St Andrew Square where there was a phone booth, of all things-
We were going to eat but decided to head up towards our other goal of the Camera Obscura. Oh yeah. It was sort of grey and rainy during the day but we were pretty lucky with the weather.
We found a place for lunch—a breakfasty place which was very good-and then off to this place-
Ohhh-if you ever get to Edinburgh—you HAVE to go here.
The view from the top-
The Camera Obscura is a series of mirrors that reflect the image of the city onto a white piece of wood in a darkened room. When this was first introduced in the 1800’s people fainted at the sight, they got sick, it was unbelievable. And it was pretty cool. You could turn the view and see the whole city. You could focus on the street below and play with the images of the people below. It was fabulous. More info here.
After we saw the demonstration of the camera obscura, we then toured the rest of the place.
Holy Cow-Here’s a sample.
A my real hand and a reflection of my hand.
Laura lost her head…….
and served it for lunch.
I did too!
So I had to get after her a little, and big.
Me and me.
We also went through the mirror maze-wow, and then we did this thing where we walked across a bridge with spinning lights which made you instantly fall over and feel sick. It was great!
After that we walked down to Greyfriars Kirk and saw the famous statue of Greyfriars Bobby.
People rub his nose which is why it’s so shiny.
This is the Kirk where his owner, John Grey, is buried. With some shining afternoon sun.
We headed back and met up with our group and then had dinner at the Haymarket, which I thought was great but others in the group weren’t so impressed. It started my Beering through Scotland Adventure.
I mean, seriously.
After a great night of sleep, we were off to tour the town and get to the castle. Sadly, as I was watching the news the night before it came to my attention that a huge and powerful storm was bearing down on us. The remnants of Hurricane Florence-and so my weather curse continues.
It was so windy on Wednesday that they cancelled the castle tour. We did have a nice tour of the city and were able to visit the botanical gardens, which it just so happened was on my wish list.
A view from the hills above the city. On the way to Arthur’s Seat.
We did see quite a few rainbows on this trip.
We then went over to the Gardens.
And although the sun came out briefly, after about an hour they were closed the gardens too because of the storm. It was a big deal and was actually a named storm, the first of the season, Ali.
We found a place to eat lunch…..
And headed to the Scottish museum.
Laura raced a car….
Dolly the sheep was there-
Laura went on a space walk..
The Millennium Clock marked the hour
And animals floated across the roof top.
There was also a room full of torture devices which I guess I didn’t photograph. History was pretty brutal.
We tried to get to a yarn store—which we did but it wasn’t what I wanted. And we didn’t get to the second one on the list because the wind was blowing at about 50 mph and the rain was blowing and it was cold and fairly miserable. So back to the hotel we went. Laura went off to see a Scottish dinner and I took myself off to a pub called the Jolly Botanist. It was jolly for sure.
A pint and my kindle—Reading Outlander in Scotland!
On Thursday the sun came out and we had the pleasure of touring the Royal Yacht Britannia.
Have you watched The Crown? Hello….
Cause everyone needs a Rolls on board.
Hers and his adjoining bedrooms.
The Royal Dining Room-you can rent it for your events.
One might need a refresher on which fork to use. I always learned to work from the outside in.
The family room. You would not believe how clean the carpets are.
And of course, the Royal Bar-
Actually I think this was for the crew.
And don’t forget the dingy.
Hanging out on the rear deck.
I bought some Royal Gin and a Sweat Shirt for Dave.
Afterwards, we toured the Royal Residence, Holyrood Palace.
It’s open during the fall but closes in the summer when the queen is in residence.
You can’t take pictures inside-This is the entrance-
And the courtyard-
And in the back were the ruins of the Augustine Holyrood Abbey, dating from 1128.
The grounds were beautiful
After this, we found another fabulous lunch spot and then toured St. Giles Cathedral-
I will say that the Europeans really know how to do Cathedrals.
We did a bit more sightseeing, I bought some whiskey for Cody, saw a guy with an owl, and went back to the hotel to prepare for Friday’s departure to Northern Scotland.
We found a local pub for dinner-
And so ends part one—Edinburgh. I could spend at least a week here there is so much to see. We barely scratched the surface but we had to move on.
Stay Tuned for the rest of Scotland, Part Two.
