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Scott Monument
Scott MonumentToday is our last day in Edinburgh, and Scotland. This evening we fly to Germany to spend a few days on the Rhine River, with a one-night layover in Buchenbeuren or something like that. First, we packed all our stuff up and put in the hostel's storage room, since we had to check out by 10:30am and our flight didn't leave until 6:10pm. After storing our gear, we headed out to see what we could see our last day. We wandered around a bit before we found a museum called "The People's Story". Very interesting, and free. It shows what life was like for the average person in Edinburgh, going back hundreds of years. It was amazing to see how the average folk lived back even a late as the early 1900s.
By the time we left the museum, it was close to lunch time, so we opted to try a little place called Cafe Vivo that advertised breakfast all day. Our plan was to have a heavy meal at lunch, then get something light to eat on the RyanAir flight to Germany. Manoi tried the vegetarian breakfast and I had the standard breakfast. Each was about 6.95 Pounds, and
Cafe Vivo
Cafe Vivo where we ate breakfast for lunch very tasty. The biggest difference was my platter had bacon and sausage and Manoli's had hash browns and two eggs instead of one.
After lunch we decided to hike up to Arthur's Seat, a place our granddaughter had recommended, although I don't remember why now. Apparently, they had held a couple of races that morning near Holyrood, as we kept seeing people with running outfits and medals dangling. It looked like it was just 5k, 10k, and a couple of shorter runs for the kids, but it was called the Edinburgh Marathon Festival. The hike up to Arthur's Seat (the way we went!) was rather steep and a bit grueling, but the sights from there were awesome. Not having climbed enough on the regular path, I spotted some folks higher up on a rocky ridge and had to get there. We finally round the winding path on the back side that took us all the way up. Manoli took a photo of me at the very top, so you'd get some idea how high it really was.
Manoli spotted a small lake on the back side, so we hiked down there to take a look before heading back
Our brunch
Our brunch to our hostel. We grabbed our bags and backpacks and walked down to the bus stop for the AirLInk bus near Waverly Station. We only had to wait about 5 minutes for the bus, and pay 4.50 Pounds each for the trip. When we arrived at Edinburgh Airport, we had to go through a convoluted security process of first showing our boarding passes and passports, then take our checked bags to another place that again checked our boarding passes and passports, then through turnstiles like at the metros where we had to scan our boarding passes to open the gate, then the security checkpoint where you have to take everything off, but here nobody even glanced at our passports or boarding passes. Our RyanAir flight didn't have a gate assigned until 5:10, an hour before the flight, so we guessed it would be on one end where we saw the RyanAir planes and a guy told us almost all those flights left from that end. So we went there and bought a "meal deal" that consisted of our choice of sandwich, drink, and chips, for 3.99 Pounds. It was a pretty good deal, the sandwiches were quite good, and I
Edinburgh from Holyrood Park
Edinburgh from Holyrood Park was able to get a Dr. Pepper. It turned out we were wrong about the gate location when they announced it at 5:10, and had to walk completely across the departure terminal to the very other end.
The flight left on time, as usual for RyanAir, and we arrived in Franfurth Hahn Aiport a half an hour early. By the way, this is not the airport near Frankfurt, it is one more or less created by RyanAir and is located over 100 miles from Frankfurt. It is still quite convenient to the Rhine River where we'll be spending our few nights. We sped through customs and after asking a lady in the bus ticket window about the nearby hotel we were spending the night before continuing on to Sankt Goar on the Rhine River. She told us to take a taxi or walk the 2 kilometers, as the bus wasn't a good idea. We found a taxi, negotiated a 10 Euro or less fare, and away we went. It turned out our hotel was more or less unattended for the night, but the door was open and the front desk had a sign telling latecomers to go to our
Climbing to Arthur's Seat
Climbing to Arthur's Seat room and our key was inside the unlocked door, with a small sign below that saying "PETTY 33". We found our room, and the key inside with no problems. This is a different sort of hotel, but there was a comfortable looking bed, a nice private bathroom, TV, table and wardrobe. We stowed our gear and went out for a stroll to see the town and what stores we could find open. Unfortunately, it was 10pm by this point and the only thing we found was a bar/restaurant in a nearby hotel. Oh well. Tomorrow morning we'll stroll around a bit before heading back to the airport to catch a bus to Mainz and then a train or boat up the Rhine to our hotel in Sankt Goar.
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