Thursday 19^th June                                            COCKENZIE  -  EDINBURGH

Robyn writes: Another huge day in Scotland, with the weather once more being very, very kind to us. It hit the twenty degree mark today, and was quite warm in the sun. For the first time this trip I wore my sandals, and my toes weren’t cold at all!

This was our last full day in Edinburgh, so we all had different things to do and see – Lex and I had already pre-purchased our Edinburgh Castle tickets for today (luckily – they are now sold out until Sunday.) Carol wanted a ‘down day’ like mine yesterday, and Glen decided to come in to the city with us. He ended up going to Camera Obscura, a Victorian optical illusion place that we went to with Cait and Mikeal in 2014 – it’s excellent.

                                                        View from the top of the Royal Mile.

                                        Camera Obscura is the white-turreted building in the middle.

We were at the bus stop by 9, and within a few minutes a 26 bus came along. Of course, it took about an hour to get into the city centre, but for only a few pounds it’s excellent value. We got off at the Scott Memorial, and found a Pret a Manger for morning tea – cheap and nice. Lex had the porridge again, and I’m a great fan of their Portuguese egg tarts.

                                            Scottish Pipers (real and statuary) and the castle

                                                     Approaching the entrance

Then we headed up a lot of stairs and hills to be at the castle for our 11 o’clock booking. We got in very quickly and set out to explore. The castle is HUGE and sprawling; like no other castle I’ve been to. It’s a bit like the Tower inside; a little village almost. Walls and steps and walkways go every which way up and down. We decided to start with a walk along the western walls, which was a really good idea. We went all the way around, and were able to orient ourselves with the city around the castle, and at that stage very few people were doing it. It’s certainly a very defensive position; you can see why they built it there. The castle was so crowded today; lots of foreign voices and very few English speakers around you at times. (Though there were definitely other Aussies there – at one stage I caught a snippet of conversation that went: “Mate, he plays for Penrith”!)

Views from the western walls walk

The walk ended at the doorway to the National War Museum, so we went in there next. It was really interesting; lots of displays about Scotland’s involvement in wars over hundreds of years. Some excellent displays of weapons used over the centuries, too. By the time we’d finished that, we were ready for lunch, and amazingly got a table in the courtyard café. At one o’clock, they came around telling everyone that the one o’clock gun was about to fire (Edinburgh tradition) and if we wanted to watch it, we’d have to go out right away, as they were going to lock the doors! (I have no idea why.) Anyway, we were much more interested in our lunch and tea than fighting our way into the crowd outside to try and see a gun, so we stayed put. Of course, there were some people who hadn’t understood or listened, and were trying fruitlessly to open the doors! Anyway, after the gun was fired, the crowd came pouring in, in search of lunch, but we were done by then.

                                                  Lots of ways to kill people over the years

                                                                          Earl Haigh

We walked further up the hill to the upper ward, where we saw St Margaret’s chapel (the oldest existing building, dating from 1130.) Then we lined up in the long queue to see the Scottish Royal Jewels and the Royal apartments. It took about ten minutes, so not too long, but by then we were glad of our wide-brimmed hats in the sun. No photos were allowed, but I can report that the jewels are very impressive. So were the royal rooms, once occupied by Mary Queen of Scots and other famous Scottish royals. In the same area, we also went in the see the War Memorial, built after WWI. It’s a beautiful building with lots of stained glass windows inside, but again, no photography was allowed. We also visited the Great Hall, built by James IV in 1512; it was truly impressive. The Victorians had got at it, though (they really couldn’t help themselves), but apparently the ceiling was still fully original. The final place we looked at was the Half Moon Battery, a very imposing collection of massive cannons covering a huge defensive area.

                                                   The inner ward

                                                    War Memorial

After several hours, we decided we’d seen everything, so settled on a trip to the National Portrait Gallery to finish the day. This was about 15 minutes’ walk down the hills and steps and into the city. Here we were able to get a locker for 1 pound and dump our backpacks (yay!), and we had an hour to wander around and admire the portraits of several centuries of Scottish Great and Good, before meeting a bit after 4 for afternoon tea in the café there. I loved the historical portraits and they had some excellent ones, but they also had a modern gallery which included three Portrait Artist of the Year winners. It’s one of our favourite shows.

                                                               So many steps!

                                                         Scottish piper on the Royal Mile

                                                          Portrait Gallery, built late 1890s

                                                                      Mary, Queen of Scots

                                                    Portrait of Lorraine Kelly (Scottish TV personality)

                                                        which won the 2024 Portrait Artist of the Year

By now it was getting quite late, so we made our way to the bus stop (finally – once more I went the wrong way!), caught our bus, and arrived back in Cockenzie just before 6. Of course, it was still broad daylight. Carol had a delicious soup ready for tea, so we are all well fed, and now face that chore – packing. This lot is made more difficult by the fact that we’re heading for Aberdeen tomorrow night, then 4 nights on our Shetland trip, so we are trying to pack light, as we are only taking one car on the ferry, and need to fit all of our things in. At least all of our washing has dried, so we do have clean clothes to pack. Off to Aberdeen tomorrow!

                                                      View of Inchcolm Island from the bus

                                  There have been some beautiful sunsets over the firth this week.