It took the whole of Friday to get from Spain to Edinburgh with lots of waiting around in airports and various dramas over flight delays, which lead to actually missing our connecting flight from Heathrow to Edinburgh. Eventually we got on a later flght, which was again delayed, and touched down in Edinburgh at about 11:30pm, 5 hours later than planned. One can't help feeling that flying on Air NZ is a much better experience and that Air NZ has got its act together very well when it comes to handling delays and changes of plan. Mind you, it's all orders of magnitude more complicated in a place like Heathrow!
The change in weather was very noticeable: 37 in Spain and 14 in Scotland. Out with the warm clothes again!
Edinburgh has several "hop on hop off" double decker buses so we invested heavily in a 2 day ticket as a convenient way to have a look around the town. Our first impressions were that the city has quite a dour, Scottish look (as one might expect), but that it's nonetheless fascinating and extremely popular - there are people everywhere and we have queued more than anywhere else so far.
Visited the Edinburgh castle which was great. St Margarets chapel, the oldest part, dates from the 12th century and is still used to day for church services, weddings, funerals etc. Supposedly it is well liked for weddings by the father of the bride as its small size limits the party to about 20 guests. The Scottish crown jewels were on display (and very shiny) along with the Stone of Scone (or Stone of Destiny) that all British monarchs sit on when being crowned.
We inspected Mons Meg the mighty 20" bore medieval siege cannon that was a gift to the Scottish king James II in 1454.
The views from the castle were magnificent, if a bit "bleak".
Later we visited Mary King's Close, for a demonstration/explanation of life in the past for residents of Edinburgh's "closes" (the narrow alleys off the main streets). Mary King's Close was abandoned when a building was built over the top and has only recently been "rediscovered". Imagine a 2 - 3m wide alley with buildings up to 8 stories high on each side, houses above ground level reached by external spiral staircases, and the alley filled with market stalls. The term "close" comes from the gates that were closed and locked at each end outside of business hours, presumably to keep out undesirables.
On Sunday the hop on/off bus took us to Leith Port in the rain where we saw the ex Royal Yacht Britannia. Britannia has been retired from active service and re invented as a museum. It happened to be the Queen's 90th birthday weekend and all the punters on the tour of the yacht were served a mini royal cupcake to mark the occasion.
After inspecting the ship we took tea, as you do, on the upper deck. Very nice, although shocking to be reminded of all the poor people who have to eat their cucumber sandwiches with the crusts still on.
A Scottish highlight so far? Porridge with honey for breakfast at the cafe next door to our hotel - "Pep & Fodder" - highly recommended.
The change in weather was very noticeable: 37 in Spain and 14 in Scotland. Out with the warm clothes again!
Edinburgh has several "hop on hop off" double decker buses so we invested heavily in a 2 day ticket as a convenient way to have a look around the town. Our first impressions were that the city has quite a dour, Scottish look (as one might expect), but that it's nonetheless fascinating and extremely popular - there are people everywhere and we have queued more than anywhere else so far.
Visited the Edinburgh castle which was great. St Margarets chapel, the oldest part, dates from the 12th century and is still used to day for church services, weddings, funerals etc. Supposedly it is well liked for weddings by the father of the bride as its small size limits the party to about 20 guests. The Scottish crown jewels were on display (and very shiny) along with the Stone of Scone (or Stone of Destiny) that all British monarchs sit on when being crowned.
We inspected Mons Meg the mighty 20" bore medieval siege cannon that was a gift to the Scottish king James II in 1454.
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| Arthur's seat from the castle. |
On Sunday the hop on/off bus took us to Leith Port in the rain where we saw the ex Royal Yacht Britannia. Britannia has been retired from active service and re invented as a museum. It happened to be the Queen's 90th birthday weekend and all the punters on the tour of the yacht were served a mini royal cupcake to mark the occasion.
After inspecting the ship we took tea, as you do, on the upper deck. Very nice, although shocking to be reminded of all the poor people who have to eat their cucumber sandwiches with the crusts still on.
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| Demonstration of "attention" and "at ease". |
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| Waiting for a piece of "Chocolate Perfection Pie" - one of the Queen's favourites. |
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