Sunday 10 July 2011

Hi Joyce & Noel lovely to hear from you and glad you are enjoying our writings. Hope you are all OK.

Nanny when do you leave on your trip. Have to look at your itinerary again to find out.

Jed - fancy you poking around - we were thrilled to hear of your new arrival and hope everything is going well!

Mary you really are a star! Right to the front door of our B&B again and not a hitch. You didn’t even mind when we changed the route a little you just recalculated ! Our new address is 9 spencer Street, Edinburgh – quite close to the city – just a short bus trip away. Our room is gorgeous – purple and white with lovely chandelier and crisp white bedding with purple overthrows. It’s a large room with a big sash window that looks out to a nice garden – really nice.

We arrived at around 1.30pm after stopping for a hot chocolate at a service stop along the way. Our host Gerard initially said our room wasn’t ready but by the time he had given us a spiel about all the things to do he was able to let us in and we were able to unpack and refresh before setting off into town for lunch. The bus stop was just around the corner and the bus took us right into the centre of town to the “bridge” actually North Bridge which spans the valley through the centre of the city which we are told was formerly a lake which was drained over several decades and eventually filled in and utilised.

Lunch was at the Guildford Arms pub which was really nice and the food was fantastic. Kev had fish chowder and I had mushrooms and parma ham on garlic bread – as well as the usual ale of course! The very charming waitress (from East London) told us where we could get tickets for the hop-on-hop-off bus and we set out to do just that. We chose the trip which took us to the port as we decided to do a tour of the Royal Yacht Britannia. This tour was recommended to us by someone staying in our B&B at Bowness and he had raved about it. It was truly an unforgettable tour which we both thoroughly enjoyed. To be able to step inside the rooms used by the Queen and her family was amazing. Nan you would have loved it, especially the main dining room – it was sumptuous. The yacht has been maintained faithfully every day since it was decommissioned and you could imagine the royal family stepping onto it today for a cruise. Apart from looking at all the lovely furnishings etc the rest of the boat was fascinating as you could look at every aspect of it including the bunk rooms, mess rooms, bridge, laundry, galleys, sick bay and operating room and even the engine room. It is all in sparkling condition and truly a credit to the people who keep it that way. As you can imagine, this kept us occupied for the best part of the afternoon and we finally got home around 6.30pm! Just about to go out for a meal.