Monday 11th July

Hi Stu lovely to hear from you. Mary isnt here at the moment she is on vacation - personally I think you have offended her! Havent heard from Mike so cant tell you how he is!

Caroline and Keith lovely to hear from you. We are having a ball but are suffering with our legs a bit. One more day in Edinburgh before we leave to head for York. Might head for Portobello for morning tea and Musselburgh for lunch!

Back to our story ---
Had a lovely breakfast – Gerry talked us both into having a cooked breakfast each! Was lovely and everyone else was having a full Scottish Breakfast – looked lovely but huge. Won’t be having one of those. Walked up to the bus stop and caught our bus into the centre of Edinburgh. We have the choice of 5 different buses that go past our door. The trip takes about 10 minutes so not long. We got off the stop before the North Bridge, where all buses that come and go into Edinburgh pass through so it’s easy to get around and we bought a day ticket so that we could use it to go for as many rides as we wanted to.

We walked up Canongate (Royal Mile) to the Castle. So many of the streets here in Edinburgh are the same as those in Dunedin. Sort of makes us feel at home. Princes St, George St, Waverley, Heriot Row, Cumberland St, The Waters of Leith and it goes on. We also didn’t know that Edinburgh used to be called Dunedin and the name was changed when the English became the ruling power way back when.

Heard that the queues for entry into the Castle were huge and to book online which Jannie did after breakfast and when we got into the Castle we got our tickets simply by putting our code number into the machine and out popped our tickets. Picked up our audio headsets and away we went. We walked the walls which gave us a lovely view of Edinburgh and surrounding areas. There were cannons on all of the ramparts and the audio told us of all the sieges that had happened over the years. We went to go into St Margaret’s Chapel, which is the oldest building in Edinburgh but it was closed to the public as there was a christening on and wouldn’t be open till 11.30 am. Never mind we went instead into the Scottish War Memorial Museum. Scottish fighting down through the ages until the modern day. It was very well done and the movies were well worth the sit down and rest the legs. The numbers of Scots who have been killed in wars is incredible. We went to see “The Honours of Scotland”. These are the crown jewels of Scotland dating back to Mary Queen of Scots. They were hidden away after Bonnie Prince Charlie was driven out of Scotland after the Battle of Collodin was lost. Sir Walter Scott was given the job of finding them and did so. The Crown, the Sword and the Sceptre were locked away in a huge oak chest that was padlocked and then locked inside a small room in some out of the way place. Cromwell looked for it and wanted to destroy them the same way he did with the English Crown Jewels. Backtracking to go and have a look at St Margaret’s Chapel we came across the “Mons Meg” which is one of Europe’s biggest siege cannons. Going into the Chapel through this 5 foot something high door and this revealed the smallest chapel I have been in. It had an alter area of perhaps 2.5m by 2m and the rest of the chapel was double that so maybe 2.5m by 6m. It had an oval ceiling and one window. Having spent 4 hours at the castle we went down the street looking for a lunch place. Along the way we looked at all of the shops selling all sorts of tartan materials, scarves, kilts, blankets, throws etc. We were looking for a Cameron cashmere scarf for Jannie. Not to be found so she bought a Diana scarf (Girls, I bought a Marf and one that I liked rather than any specific Clan. But seeing I have one at home it will probably end up in the bottom drawer eh!)

Lunch – soup and salad – beer and wine. Great.

After lunch we walked down Canongate to the Palace of Holyroodhouse. This is the Queen’s official Scottish residence when she is here. Unfortunately she wasn’t there today! Canongate has the castle at one end and the palace at the other end so that’s why its named the Royal Mile. The Palace is where various Kings and Queens of Scotland resided including James 1 and Mary Queen of Scots. The tour took us into the quadrangle and then through the various rooms including the main dining room and various entertainment halls where the Queen holds formal engagements. Every year Holyroodhouse has a garden party hosted by the Queen where everybody who is anybody comes along to talk to HRM. The Palace reminded me very much of Hampton Palace and it is built in a similar quadrangle with a central lawn and the rooms on every side. We walked through the King’s reception rooms and on into his sleepin g quarters. The furnishings have been restored and some parts replaced but from what we were told everything looked exactly as it would have done in the 17th century. Mary Queen of Scots’ bed was bought for £212.10 in 1700’s which was equivalent to about £40,000 today. It has also been refurbished and is now inside a clear glass screen to protect it from any further deterioration.

There were some very old paintings in the palace some of which were quite amazing in their detail and quality, particularly as they had been painted in the 1600’s. In the main ball room there were close on 100 paintings all of Scottish Kings and Queens – though not many of the latter.

Before we exited we walked through the old Abbey alongside the Palace. This is mostly in ruins but you could still get the feeling of how it might have looked back in the old days. We passed up the opportunity to walk in the palace gardens as we were both suffering from sore feet. Kev has an ingrown toenail and I have my usual feet problem.

We finally dragged ourselves out of there at about 3pm and headed across the street to the Scottish Parliament building. We were able to go inside the debating chamber where they were putting in a new computerised system and there were lots of men doing all sorts of maintenance work. The building is amazing. It was designed by a Catalonian architect in response to a competition which he won – of course. He died before it was finished and his wife who was also an architect finished the project. She changed a few things as we women like to do.

Weary legs bag home to rest up before going out to dinner.