Last weekend we were Edinburgh. It’s taken me a whole week to get the photos uploaded, but still not properly tagged and labeled. We took so many photos! I also bought a new movie camera and now have to figure out a) how to get the movies loaded onto the Mac; and b) how to get them showing on this blog! That may take a little more time. Stay tuned for a link to YouTube in any case.
Why Edinburgh? Well, for the Rugby of course! It’s the Rugby World Cup going on right now and we bought tickets back in January to see Scotland v. New Zealand. More on that in the next post. But first, Edinburgh itself.
It’s a lovely city! Much older than Amsterdam and very different in look and feel. There are a few “Amsterdam” style buildings in the old city (tall, thin, with ornate roof decorations) but most of the buildings are made of massive stone in a more austere style. In the center of the city, sitting atop the highest point of land, is Edinburgh Castle.
This photo was taken from the side of Holyrood Park, not quite all the way to Arthur’s Seat. We didn’t make it into the Castle itself, but we walked several times up and down the Royal Mile:
We visited a shop and demonstration of Scottish Tartan weaving and of course did some whiskey tasting (both Saturday and Monday). The tasting room was not so busy at 11:00 in the morning. 🙂 :
We discovered a really nice mellow Lowlands whiskey called Auchentoshan and we bought a bottle of 16 year special edition at the Royal Mile Whiskey Shop. Mmmm lekker!
We also walked up to Arthur’s Seat. This is the hill at the edge of the old town which is part of Holyrood Park. I’m sure there’s a lot of history surrounding this landmark, but I haven’t looked it up yet. Anyway it was a lovely walk up with views from the top over the entire city and surrounding area, including the port and the Firth of Forth. Here’s a photo of me at the top (it was incredibly windy) and a photo of the view below:
It was a very nice long weekend (except for the lousy hotel bed). I’m now very enthusiastic about going back to Scotland and exploring the countryside. There aren’t really any wild places left in the Netherlands but with Scotland only a short 1.5hr plane ride away (and pretty cheap with EasyJet) there are lots of wild place to explore in the Highlands. A mellow whiskey at the end of the day is a nice treat too!
