Overnight in Edinburgh!

We left oh so bright and early, 7:00 AM to be exact. We arrived in Edinburgh and our first item on the list was a free walking tour. On our way there, we passed Sir Walter Scott’s monument, quite the sight, as well as a giant ferris wheel. The 3 hour walking tour was quite fun, we heard all kinds of stories about the history of the city. There was once a locksmith who decided to make copies of all the wealthy people’s keys and rob them. This went on for many years until the rich finally made a society devoted to catching this criminal. They said to themselves, we need a respectable trustworthy man to appoint head of this committee. Who did they appoint? None other than the locksmith J He fooled them for around 11 years or so, until one day he got greedy. He decided to rob the local tax house. He was so confident in his skills and the longevity of his career that as he was robbing in the middle of the night, he decided to take a nap. Surrounded by all the coins, he awoke to his arrest. Just one of the many colorful stories that made up the city.

We wandered around and saw St. Giles, the church where all the Scottish people are knighted (including Sean Connery), we saw the part of the University of Edinburgh’s School of Divinity (housing a massive statue of John Knox) which is now used for government meetings. After the tour, and stopping for some tea to rest our weary feet and backs (we carried our backpack with all our stuff around the entire two days), we made our way to Mr. John Knox’s former home and read a bit about his time there.

It was then quite dark and chilly, and time to find our Bed and Breakfast. A three mile walk outside the city center, we arrived upon the Brae Lodge Guesthouse, advertised with colour tv ! Neil, the owner, hospitably welcomed us in and showed us our room. Not wanting to walk any further than we had to, we had a tasty meal at the nearest restaurant, an Indian place J Arriving back at the room, quite tired and full, we spent a good nine hours or so sleeping that night. Breakfast was fun; we were the only ones in the guesthouse so we got quite the personal attention from Neil, who made us omelets and potato scones, and eggs and tomato and mushrooms and more.

Then time for more sight-seeing! We intelligently hopped on the bus this time for the ride into town, and headed straight for Edinburgh Castle. Quite different from most of the castles I’d been to, it had been built on to itself for about 900 years, and its architecture and decor reflected all the changes in time it had seen. We saw prisoner’s wards, a 900 year old chapel, a war memorial, and of course, the crown jewels- including the Stone of Scone upon which the Scottish kings had been crowned.

Breaking for a bit of lunch, we did stop this time at a more authentic place, where we had vegetarian haggis! Yum! The real stuff is made of sheep’s innards, but this vegetarian stuff was pretty tasty. Also worth mentioning was an amazing chocolate orange cake with ice cream. Oh were we happy. But the travelers carried on. Next on our list was Holyrood Palace, where the queen stays when she’s in Scotland. A free audio guide showed us around the place, which sadly we could not take pictures in. Having seen all the tourist things to see, it was now time for a bit of shopping! Edinburgh turned out to be the perfect place to get all our Christmas shopping done. Thus ended our brief stay in Scotland, and so we ended up getting back on the train with much more luggage, tireder feet and backs, but a much fuller experience than we came with.