Hello everyone, It dawned sunny and windy this morning so I got myself into town and had another walk around. The layout and street names remind me so much of Dunedin-Princes St George St, Queen St, Leith, York Pl, Musselburgh etc etc and the outlook over the Firth of Forth from Castle Hill reminds me a bit of looking over Otago Harbour. Edinburgh is a beautiful city and I can understand why the early immigrants to Dunedin wanted to remind themselves of the place they left. While the sun was out I wandered through the Princes St Gardens then had a look in The Parish Church of St Cuthbert-beautifully decorated and it had a real warm caring atmosphere about it. It was/is influenced by the celtic tradition which I am inspired by. It is also the oldest Christian site in Edinburgh although the present church was built only a couple of hundred years ago-with the spire from the previous church still intact. One of the woman looking after visitors opened up the memorial chapel (built as a memorial after the WW1) and told me how a price was put on all the marble tiles and letters of the names of those who had fallen so people in the parish could purchase a letter or a tile etc (depending on what they could afford) so their donation was more personalised I guess. She also told me it was in the chapel that Agatha Christie married her second husband (in 1930) and was married by George McLeod-founder of the Iona Community. It's great talking to locals-they have so much interesting knowledge which is not found in the guidebooks :-) Next door to St Cuthbert's is St John's and the lower rooms of the church have been turned into a couple of shops-church bookshop, a Faritrade/Oneworld shop (like our TradeAid shops in NZ), Peace and Justice Centre and a lovely cafe where I had lunch. It was great to see the area being put to good use for outreach into the community. The sun was still shining at lunchtime so I sat outside (the tables were alongside some of the old gravestones from the graveyard-that may sound a little un-nerving but it was actually really beautiful and peaceful). After lunch I made my way up Castle Hill and went to see Edinburgh Castle. It was getting very windy by this stage (that also remined me of home-a cool windy spoiling an otherwise nice sunny day!). The castle and grounds were amazing and really worth the £10 entry fee. I didn't realise how many buildings were actually located inside the castle grounds behind the wall and gates aside from the main castle rooms and great hall. I was there most of the afternoon wandering around and learning lots about Scottish history (well the royal and miitary history anyway!). The highlights for me were seeing the Sccotish crown jewels (and all the history behind them) and the St Margaret chapel which was built somewhere around 1200 (can't remember the exact date now!). The views of Edinburgh city from the castle are amazing. It is in a very strategic position so I can understand why it was so fiercly fought over. After that I wandered down the Royal Mile and visited St Giles Cathedral. Another lovely building with beatiful architecture and stained glass windows-over 1000 years of history on this site-rather hard to get my head around all of this human history sometimes! However this time I got a different vibe-maybe because of its great size it isn't as easy to have a community feel about it. Having done my sightseeing for the day I headed to Waverly Station to book my train & ferry ticket from Perth to Belfast for October. I still need to get some bus tickets organised-task for tomorrow... I hope to get to Lauder in the Scottish Borders tommorrow so I can exchange pictures of Lauder in Central Otago!! Until next time.. love, Sonia P.S. it's raining now!