| Jul 23, 2006 - Edinburgh, Scotland
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 | | show all 14 | | Edinburgh Castle | | old town Edinburgh | | looking down the Royal Mile | | |
| Hello from Scotlandia, we arrived in Edinburgh yesterday afternoon to sunny skies and milder temps than we have had the last few weeks in Ireland. It's sunny, but not quite as hot, which is a relief. The B&B we had reservations at confused our arrival date and had us down for arriving August 22, not July 22. She was completly full, but called the B&B across the street and got us a room there, even offering to pay the difference in price. I think that because I work for Rick Steves, she was esp. paniced. She even did our laundry for us free of charge. We told her it wasn't a big deal and thanked her for finding us another place to stay, telling her there was no need to pay the difference in price but she insisted. I wonder if she would have done the same if I didn't work for ETBD? Since she wouldn't let us pay her for doing our laundry, we bought her a nice bouqet of flowers.
It feels a little strange to be on my own (so to speak, only Candi and myself that is) without another 26 people around. After spending a month doing 2 tours back to back, I am ready to be on my own schedule. It will be nice not having to be anywhere at a certain time or run from one attraction to the other. I typically travel at a little more leisurely pace than we had on the tours and I know Candi is looking forward to sleeping in a little later. That said, we still had a pretty busy day. We spent our first day in Scotland walking around the old part of town, from Edinburgh Castle, down the Royal Mile to Holyrood Palace, a little over a mile away (hence the name, the royal mile). This street is lined with old gray, stone buildings, mostly containing restuarants and tourist shops and it's packed with people. There are also many little alleys leading off the Royal Mile into small courtyards, many with little gardens and viewpoints down the hill to the new town below. Edinburgh is a great city and the people very friendly, but the accents are hard to understand. We took a cab yesterday from the center of town to our hotel and only understood about half of what our cab driver was saying. He was a character, full of jokes and rhymed most everything he said. At dinner we sat next to a nice Swedish couple from Skane, who were glad to hear that were having a hard time understanding the Scots because they thought it was just them. I had always thought that the Scots only wear kilts for special occaisons, but it seems that quite a few people here are wearing them. Last night at dinner we passed several groups of men dressed in the complete get up, and even tourists are wearing them. There are goups of young Italian, French and even American guys wearing t-shirts, tennis shoes and kilts. It looks pretty funny, and you have to wonder if these guys will ever wear them again. There are tourist shops all over selling kilts , the cheapest around £30 (about $60 U.S.), which seems a lot to spend on something you will nost likely never wear again.
We also took a hop on, hop off bus tour around town, the same company I have seen in other cities such as Paris, Barcelona and Mexico City. It's a great way to see the city as it makes a loop through the most scenic parts of the city, with stops at all the major sites. You can get on and off as much as you like during a 24 hour period. After lunch we walked back toward our B&B and climbed 'Salisbury Crags' - a large sandstone rock formation to the East of the city. It was a nice walk up and we even did a little rock climbing up one of the walls, which Candi was thrilled about. From the top there is an amazing view of the entire city. Tomorrow we pick up our rental car and head into the Scottish highlands. We decided to play it by ear and drive north unti we find a cool place to spend the night, then we will head back toward England and to the Lakes District.
ciao for now. |
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