I noticed the location on yesterday’s blog says we were on the Isle of Man. Not so! We were in Edinburgh. This app is being very finicky. It won’t allow me to change the location to Edinburgh. I’ve also noticed several spelling and grammatical errors and I apologize.

Today we set off to see the Royal Yacht Britannia, Her Majesty The Queen’s former floating palace for over 40 years berthed in Edinburgh. We were missing Laura and Russ as Laura came down with a nasty case of what we all think is food poisoning. We hopped on the HopOn HopOff bus and arrived about 40 minutes later.

Britannia is the former royal yacht of the British monarch, Queen Elizabeth II which was in service from 1954 until 1997. She was the 83rd such vessel since King Charles II acceded to the throne in 1660, and is the second royal yacht to bear the name, the first being the racing cutter built for the Prince of Wales in 1893. During her 43-year career, the yacht travelled more than a million nautical miles around the globe. Now retired from royal service, Britannia is permanently berthed at Ocean Terminal, Leith in Edinburgh, Scotland.

We took an audio guide tour of the 5 decks and viewed the small, separate bedrooms and offices of the Queen and Prince Philip to the gleaming Engine Room. The offices were across the hall from each other (about 8 feet) but had telephones so the Queen and Prince could get a hold of each other! Very pretentious in my opinion! This is where Princess Diana & Prince Charles (and other newlyweds) spent their honeymoon and where Prince William and Prince Harry spent their summer holidays. It’s interesting to note that all the beds, including the Queen’s and Prince Philip’s (who had separate small bedrooms which were not very elaborate) were single beds until Charles put in a double bed for his honeymoon. We saw where kings and queens, world leaders and celebrities were wined and dined; from Frank Sinatra and Liz Taylor to Nelson Mandela and Sir Winston Churchill.

After lunch, on a patio no less, we made our way to the National Museum of Scotland. We were about 5 minutes away and the skies opened up. WTF! We were just enjoying the sunshine on a patio. They say the weather in Scotland is so changeable that if it’s raining, wait 5 minutes. It’s so true. We made it into the free museum a little bit wet and began to explore.

The museum is huge and has one side that is like the Ontario Science Centre and the ROM rolled into one and the other side is all about Scotland’s history from Roman & Viking times to the present day. We focused on the Scottish side. I must say the exhibits are great but I found it hard to know where to go next. The exhibits are a bit disorganized to me. But what I did see was impressive. Some highlights for me were the copy of Mary Queen of Scots tomb, the Maiden, a big guillotine used to behead witches, criminals and dissenters, the weapons used in various times, and the many forms of tortuous encasements for witches and criminals. Fascinating stuff.

Back to the apartment where we met up with our friends. Laura was feeling good enough to come to our last dinner together (even though she still wasn’t completely back to normal). Good on her for coming out. She’s a trooper!

We said our goodbyes that night as the four of them were leaving early the next morning. Vic and I are staying on for another week to explore the Inner Hebrides area and Glasgow.