Friday, 17th April 2009

Deb and I woke this morning after a good night’s sleep. Nearly everything we had washed last night was dry, but we had to pack everything up and leave the suitcases for the hotel to move to another room, as we had to move out of the suite with the shower, to another with a shower over the bath.
After breakfast, it was on to the bus and off on our tour with local guide Richard to visit the Edinburgh Castle and then Holyrood Palace.
We found that it was almost freezing for us Aussies – it was around 7°C but the wind was bitterly cold even though we had on our thermal underwear and coats, scarves etc.
First we drove around the town looking at the historic buildings, statues etc. The sky was quite grey which doesn’t make for great photos but we took many just the same. I am hoping to be able to post some photos along with these blogs for the past few days and send some emails to family and friends from here tonight, before we move on to Inverness tomorrow.
When we arrived at the Castle, there were workmen there taking down seating that had been erected for the Edinburgh Festival which had just concluded before we arrived. We were surprised how small the area is that they perform the Edinburgh Tattoo in. It looks so much larger on TV. The seating seems to be suspended over the edge of the cliff face, and we were told that when the show starts, there are no toilets available, and you are stuck in the bleacher seat until the show is over.
We were taken into the Castle at 9.30am when it opened, so we were practically the first tourists in for a visit. Richard, our tour guide, was very knowledgable, and told us about the history of the castle. It was extremely cold and windy, and this continued as we went higher up to the top of the Castle.
We visited all of the areas open to the public – walking back down to the entrance. Then it was back on the bus and off to Holyrood Palace for a tour through the Queen’s residence when she is in Scotland.
Once again we had a very detailed account of the history of the Palace, in particular the story of Mary Queen of Scots from the Scottish people’s point of view. The off to look at the interior of the building. Unfortunately, photography is forbidden inside the Palace, so I couldn’t take any photos to illustrate our visit. We saw the Scottish Crown Jewels, which did not seem as well protected as those we saw in The Tower of London.
We also saw the memorabilia collected from the period of Mary Stuart – there were some priceless pieces to see including a lock of her hair.
After we had finished the tour of the Palace we returned to the hotel and had the afternoon free to do what we liked.
Deb and I tried to find out where our new room was to be located, but the hotel was very busy, and didn’t have the room ready for us.
So we decided to go off out and explore. We need to find a post office to post a parcel home, and discovered one in the shopping mall attached to the hotel. We also had a quick lunch in the mall before setting off to explore the Royal Mile area.
Because it was so cold we had hot soup and other non-WW food to try to get warm.
We walked up to the Royal Mile – and explored the various tourist outlets, and also went into the Cathedral – St Giles’ Cathedral which was quite beautiful – so we took many photos.
Eventually, when we had seen enough, and were nearly frozen, we decided to return to the hotel – it was around 4.30pm.
When we got there they had allocated us a twin room on the same floor as the suite – actually, it seem to be more comfortable than the suite, although not nearly as much room, but it was much easier to warm it, than the larger suite.
The bathroom had a shower over the bath, but there were three hand grabs which made it safer to use than the shower!!!
We rested until 6.30pm, then went down the the small pub restaurant for tea, and then back to the room to write the blog, sort the photos and get ready for bed.
Tomorrow we pack up again and head further north to spend the night in Inverness.