(click on any of the pictures for a larger version)
We flew into Glasgow, arriving fairly early on Saturday morning. We got the car rented, so the first challenge was getting petrol and getting on the M8. Which we did manage, after three roundabouts. It was good practice.
Driving into Edinburgh, we got hopelessly lost trying to find the hotel, partly because of confusing directions, and partly because Edinburgh doesn't seem to feel it's necessary to label all its streets. At last we did end up at the right place, more by good luck than by good management. The hotel endeared itself to me right away; when Matt went to move the car around back to the car park, they brought me a hot cup of tea and some biscuits, which was exactly what I was needing right then. It was heaven.
Here's a photo of the hotel. The entrance is the door to the
left of the bus; the windows to the left of that are the dining
room. We had a fabulous dinner there one night--utterly delicious
food. And they didn't even show us the check at the end, just
charged it to our room. Which was probably just as well.
That first day was chilly--it barely got over 50F--and it drizzled a
lot. We were afraid that's what the whole week would be like, but
it did improve. After we arrived we went in search of
lunch. We walked about half a mile or so over to New Town and
poked our head in the first pub we saw; they didn't serve food, but
they pointed us toward one around the corner that did. So we both
had a sandwich and tried to keep our eyes open.
We knew we needed to stay awake that afternoon, but it was tough, and the weather wasn't making us want to walk around a lot. So we ended up doing something we don't usually bother with: a bus tour of the city. It turned out to be a good idea; it gave us an idea of where everything was, and it kept us awake without requiring too much exertion. And it was warm. And dry. I did doze off a bit during part of it; when we went to Holyrood Park the next day, I couldn't remember having been there before.
After
we finished the bus tour it was still a bit too early for dinner, and I
decided I needed a loo and a cup of tea, in that order. There was
a free art museum (the Royal Scottish Academy) between us and the
hotel, so we ducked in there to find a rest room, and then we
discovered that they had a coffee shop as well, so that worked
out. We both had a restoring cup of tea and a pastry. We
didn't have time to look around the museum much, but we did see an
interesting activity on the way out. Someone had set up a
foosball table and covered the playing surface with paper, and two
young men were playing foosball with balls coated in chocolate--both
dark and light. The chocolate made marks on the paper as they
played.
Then we went back to hotel and warmed up a bit, and later had dinner at a wine bar. It was pretty good, I think, but we were both pretty out of it by then. We managed to stay up till about 9:30, but that was about it.
The New Town, which was built in the 1700s, is at the bottom of the
hill that the Castle and the Royal Mile are on. We got some
decent shots of the original city from the lower level.
Sunday morning we got up and went to a sung Eucharist service at St.
John's Episcopal Church, right at the head of Princes Street. It
was a bit challenging because they used different music from us, and
their hymnal didn't include any music, just the words. So we
faked it quite a bit. Luckily, the last hymn was one we were
familiar with, so we finally got to sing in comfort. We
discovered during the sermon that there were two dogs in the front
pew--someone told us afterwards that they belonged to the Rector, who
was on holiday. They were amazingly well-behaved.
Here are photos of St. John's. It was amazingly bright in the church; apparently they'd done some refurbishing several years ago, and they even sent the stained glass windows to somewhere in England for cleaning. Even though the sun wasn't shining brightly that morning, there was plenty of light coming through, and I'm sure they'd be spectacular on a sunny day.
We hung around a while after the service and drank some tea and chatted, then changed clothes and tracked down lunch at a pub. (There were lots of lunches at pubs.) After that we caught a bus to Holyrood Park, where we climbed Arthur's Seat. It's the highest point in Edinburgh, and it has a spectacular view. We did it the hard way inadvertently; after we got started we discovered that we were on the wrong hill, so we crossed over to the right one and climbed up the rather steep back side.
Here I am pointing
to the side of the hill we climbed up. The shallower route is off
to the left. It was a good climb, but there were a few times I
wish I'd been wearing hiking boots. It got pretty steep, and it
was really windy, and I was afraid I'd go tumbling off the side.
But we both made it to the top without mishap, just with a lot of rest
breaks.
The view from the top was terrific, even though it was cloudy. We could see across the Firth of Forth. Apparently on clear days you can see all the way down to England, but I'm betting we couldn't see that far. It's really pretty country to the south, though--lots of rolling hills.
And here are some random pictures from the top of Arthur's Seat,
including a couple of us, freezing. It wasn't too bad at ground
level, but up on top, it was cold!
After we climbed down and walked back around the park, we thought about
stopping at Holyrood Palace, but we decided not to. It's still
used as a royal residence. These photos were taken through the
gate:
And this seal was
on the wall next to the entrance. I think it's James
V's, but I'm not going to swear I've got the right James. Mary
Queen
of Scots lived in Holyrood Palace for a while--some tourist literature
or other said she spent "many happy years" there, but I kind of doubt
that.
Instead of visiting Holyrood Palace, we headed up the Royal Mile and stopped in a tea shop. They were out of scones, unfortunately, but we had some tea and cakes, which we felt we deserved after all that exertion. It was nice to sit and warm up, too. After that we kept walking up toward the castle and stopped in a few shops--the Royal Mile is mostly a touristy shopping area, really. By the time we got to the top of the street it was time to head back to the hotel and get changed for our dinner at the hotel, which was amazingly good. Yum.