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Published: December 14th 2009
Edinburgh Castle
Edinburgh Castle from the siteseeing bus = blurry!City Sightseeing Tour Bus
There is only continental breakfast at the Ibis, so we went across the street to the Bank Hotel to have a cooked breakfast. They even had hash browns! From there we walked along North Bridge Street to Princes Street to Waverly Bridge where we got on the City Sightseeing Bus. This bus is hop on hop off style and is an open top double-decker as well. We wanted to get off at Edinburgh Castle first thing, but due to road diversions (detours) the bus didn’t go to the castle stop so we couldn’t and so we stayed on until Holyroodhouse. The bus also stops at about a dozen other places and was really the best way to get a feel for what things we wanted to see more of.
Wikipedia's Edinburgh Old Town page Holyroodhouse
The Palace of Holyroodhouse is the official residence of the Queen in Scotland. It stands at the end of the Edinburgh’s Royal Mile and has Arthur’s Seat as a backdrop. The palace is best known as the home of Mary Queen of Scots. This is also the place where her jealous husband Lord Darnley murdered her secretary and confidante David Rizzio in her private apartments.
On the evening of March 9 1566, Mary who at the time was six months pregnant with the future James VI, was having dinner at the Palace of Holyrood House with a small group including Rizzio, when five lords burst into the room. Rizzio was dragged out of the room, and at the top of a nearby staircase was stabbed 57 times, with Lord Darnley's dagger being left in his body. I could totally see the bloodstains where his body was left for hours against a wall! Holyroodhouse is just amazingly beautiful and was a really wonderful place to visit. We did an audio tour her and it was well worth it and super interesting. We also saw the abbey ruins and the gardens.
Wikipedia's Holyrood Palace page Edinburgh Castle
We got back on the bus and had to change busses at the end of the route back on Waverly Bridge. Finally we were able to ride the bus to the castle stop, but first we went into Gladstones Land; a wealthy merchant’s house from the 17th century. This house was bought by the trust in the 1930’s for £762 as a run down property. The whole area on High Street had
become a slum. Very few of these original buildings still exist today and the Gladstones Land house has been furnished as it would have been in the 1600’s.
We then walked up the last bit of the Royal Mile (which is also High Street) to the castle. Right outside the castle we saw a man dressed like Mel Gibson in Braveheart as William Wallace. The guy really looked like Mel Gibson too which is kind of funny in a way. He was busking; asking for money to have a picture of him taken. Edinburgh Castle is massive! They were still taking down the stadium seating that was set up for the Royal Tattoo. So the approach to the castle looked like a construction zone.
Humans have sought safety on Castle Rock for 3,000 years. We did a guided tour - our tour guide was Dougie - he was fantastic! He’s a college student and he was too funny and really knowledgeable. The guided tour was only for the outside area, and then we had as much time as we wanted to explore all the buildings that are open to the public. There was also a wedding going on
Holyrood House 3
Holyrood House - Abbey ruins at the tiny St. Margaret’s Chapel while we were there, which was very, very cool! We stopped at the castle café and split an egg mayo sandwich for a snack.
Wikipedia's Edinburgh Castle page We walked back down the Royal Mile to the hotel; it really wasn’t far at all and it was all downhill too. It took maybe 10 minutes and that included stopping in some of the little shops along the way. We got back to the hotel around 5pm then went across the street to Bella Italia restaurant for dinner. It was really good and they had the most delicious bread sticks. Had some tea and hot chocolate at the hotel and just relaxed for the evening.
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