Beautiful Edinburgh – No Really!!

So here is the start of our second full day in Edinburgh. Today Edinburgh showed us a completely different side of itself and it was a joy to behold. I guess the big secret is Sunshine!! Today the sun came out and the city looked 100% better. It probably didn’t hurt that we took a short cut to the Royal Mile (I followed directions) and we were there in 15 minutes. The operative word is still construction, the good news is most of it was up at the Edinburgh Castle end. Though I am still trying to figure out what one of the workers was doing. He was sitting on his butt and tapping at one of the finished bricks. He would hit it a few times, look at it quizzically, and then hit it again. Maybe it just made him happy.

Because it was the weekend, the royal mile was more of a royal pain around Edinburgh Castle, there were people everywhere. Part of it may have been just because the sun had come out and people were excited. Don’t know for sure but the views at the castle were much improved over yesterday.

So we started off from the castle and headed down the Royal Mile on our way to Holyrood Palace, the Scottish home for the Royal Family. Well the trip there was certainly easy, it was all downhill!! As we walked the street you typically passed either a Whisky shop, a tourist trap, a Tartan Shop, Celtic Jewelry, and every once in a while an actual restaurant. Every so often you would be surprised by a unique shop. We walked in to one only because it had Gluten Free on it’s window. Turns out the shop, Cranachan & Crowdie, is owned by a lady from the foreign land of Arizona! We chatted for a bit and ended up buying some GF cookies for when we are in the car.

It was fun peering down alleys or around corners because it was amazing what you could see. From Monuments on the hillside to hidden gardens. If you just walked down the road you would miss it all. The one thing you wouldn’t miss is gravestones. As you got closer to the Palace you seemed to come across more and more cemetaries. We passed one cemetery that was the final resting place for Adam Smith, I let the Economics students explain who he is.

We did enter the only fudge shop on the Royal Mile and brought a few samples, for testing purposes only of course. Eventually we reached the palace. We signed up for both the palace tour and the Queens Gallery, so another 33 pounds later we were off to the castle. Nice thing is this tour is not as strict as the tour at Buckingham Palace, where you are practically under guard the entire time. Here you were given your own audio guide with the admonishment that there was no photography inside the castle.

That hill in the last picture is called Arthurs Seat, and is an extinct volcano (or are they just hoping?) Seems like a funny place to build a palace.

Well for the tour we were allowed to see many of the rooms used by her highness when she was hosting various functions. We also were shown the kings bedchamber which I am sure no one actually uses anymore. One thing I noticed on the tour is that for the path that they let us visitors use, they would roll up the original carpet and have us walk on the hardwood floors.

Another thing we noticed is that some folks seemed to be doing the tour to check it off their lists. I mean we listened to everything in the guide and out of all the different folks that started near when we did, they were long gone by the time we made it to the abbey. Now the abbey is interesting as it is in need of a lot of TLC. It’s basically just a skeleton of the building with no roof. Impressive as all heck, but it’s funny that this thing would still be attached to the palace and left in it’s ancient state.

So after touring the abbey and empty gardens we were off to the Queens gallery for a resounding presentation on the first time a photographer followed the prince on his walk about through the Ottoman Empire.

Probably the most interesting things was seeing a picture of the Sphinx buried almost up to it’s head and looking no where near as good as it does today and then pictures of the Parthenon long before anyone made an attempt at restoring it. Other than that it was not that exciting. So we left the gallery and decided to head back to our hotel. Our own problem with that is the best way back meant returning up the Royal Mile, so now that downhill had become an incredibly long uphill. And I am personally hoping that the Rock n Roll Half Marathoners tomorrow are going to be running down the Royal Mile and not up it. Because that would suck. Walking up that road made me feel every day of my 57 years. Though I am going to blame it on jet lag and see if I can get away with it.

So now we are back in our hotel, the party on the floor above us has finally ended and we have silence, and we can prepare for the white knuckle adventure that begins tomorrow. I pick up the rental car and we will start our drive through the Scottish Countryside.

I don’t think Helen is too worried, after all it’s been 8 years since I had my head on collision in Northern England….