Edinburgh

We really appreciated our 10 days with Bob & Hilda, enjoying their company, and being spoiled by their home comforts, with no responsibilities or driving. We spent 3 days exploring central Edinburgh and went with them to other sights, plus had 3 days at home just mucking about (one was the first all day rain on our trip!).

Central Edinburgh is dominated by its castle, a magnificent structure containing a complex of buildings & built on an extinct volcano. It was the home of Scottish kings & queens before Holyrood Palace was built. Here we saw the real Stone of Destiny and the Scottish Crown Jewels.

Mary Queen of Scots son James, who became king at 13 months old, was born here in 1566.

Also in the Castle is Edinburgh's oldest building, a chapel built by King David 1, in honour of his mother, in the 1100s.



Cannons, these days aimed at the city's Georgian new town, built 1750 - 1820s when the old town, inside it's walls, became too crowded. Some residents never left as they couldn't afford to pay the tax to re-enter!



Below - a view of the old city from a walk, in a heavy shower, up the nearby Salisbury Crags (right).














A lone piper playing for the tourists, plenty at this time of year.

Holyrood Palace, the home of Scottish royals since the 1400s (next to a derelict abbey founded by King David in the 1100s.) Here there is a room dedicated to Mary Queen of Scots, and the Great Hall is lined with paintings of all the Scottish kings and many nobles. In the picture these people were waiting to greet Princess Anne, not us!

Old buildings in the city centre.

Below - the controversially modern & expensive Scottish Parliament buildings, with Queensbury House in the background. Most Scots are pleased to have been largely running themselves for the last 10 years. And no war was necessary!

Right - a row of Georgian homes. In the 17-1800s children in these houses lived in their nurseries, upstairs with nannies, and often didn't see much of their parents.



The 'Britannia', used as the Royal Yacht 1953-97, had 240 crew & up to 45 members of the Royal Household when it went to sea.

When banquets were held here it could take up to 3 hours to set the table & spaces between the cutlery were measured!

The memorial to Greyfriars Bobby, in the street above. His master died in 1858 when this Skye terrier was 2. Until his death in 1872 he sat on his master's grave, fed by the locals.

We are now in interesting & lovely, very showery Ireland. The last posting for our month in Scotland will be next.