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Forth Road Bridge
The Bridge over the Firth of Forth We flew into the airport at Edinborugh after ½ hour flight, and picked up the hire car.
It was about 4pm, and rather than go and hibernate in the hotel room, we hopped in the car, and drove to the North. There were some heritage type attractions in a town called Perth, which is about 1 hour North . We jumped on the expressway and got to Perth in time to go through a huge cotton Mill on the River Tay. Kathy wanted to go to a couple of other of attractions in the area, but it was a bit late to go in and see them and Greg and GPS driving again so didn’t even go past. We then went on to St Andrews, to look at the famous golf Course. That was interesting as they were setting up for the open, and there were grandstands around the course. Interestingly, I always thought that the St Andrews golf course was perched up on the cliff tops of the coast. The course is actually fairly flat and fronts sand dunes on the beach. The course that I thought was St. Andrews is actually another course about 5km South of the town
course.
We drove south, back towards Edinburgh, and through some very pretty little towns with equally pretty harbours. We had fish and chips on the beach, in the very cold town of Crail, and drove back to our hotel.
Edinburgh was alive next morning, and we walked into the city for a look around. The City is a hotch potch of roads lined with three storey stone buildings. In the centre is a beautiful line of parks, and perched above the town is the magnificent Edinburgh castle. It looks like it is up pretty high, but it only takes about 15 minutes to walk up there. The Castle entrance was being set up with scaffold that we assume to be for a forthcoming military tattoo, without the grass. (the tattoo isn’t until August however). Once in the castle, there are free tours every 15 minutes with entertaining but informative tour guides. The Castle has a long and varied history, and every visitor to Edinburgh should visit it.
Heading West from the Castle entrance, is a street called the Royal Mile. It leads directly from the castle, down the hill to the Queens Edinburgh residence. It is lined with souvenir shops
and food outlets of all types and is the place to go if you want to buy anything Scottish. We went into the Haggis Restaurant to grab some lunch and it was in a 4 storey massive tartan weaving museum. There was so much wollen and tartan products in here it was like a Myer store but just tartan on every level. Greg tried his Haggis, teeds and tatties.
As we were now a long way from the hotel, we caught a bus back to the hotel. The buses are regular and quite well priced. Greg tried to find a launderette and was gone for 1hr, but he came back with same dirty clothes, we then went for dinner and listened to local music in a little pub.
Next morning we awoke and went down to Leith, the port of Edinburgh, and took a tour of the Royal Yacht Britannia. I saw this ship sail up Port Phillip Bay when I was about 10 years old, and it was just magic to be able to have a look over it. The tour takes about 1 1/2 hours and is really good. Again, if you are in Edinburgh, you should see
this exhibit.
This all took a little longer than expected, (Kathy: not so much longer didn’t leave hotel until after 10am should have been there by that time then lots of traffic and road works detouring us, we didn’t leave Leith until 1.30pm instead of about 11.30am)so we jumped in the hire car and started our drive south. We took mostly small country roads, and drove all the way down to Windamere in the Lakes district. The roads and scenery through the lakes district are just spectacular.
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Robyn
non-member comment
great to hear!!
what a ball you 2 are having. I love Edinburgh - we were only there for one day and it was pouring rain - with 2 little kids it was a challenge but it was great to see the castle and loved the feel of the place. keep enjoying....!!