Halò, Ciamar a tha thu/sibh ? Hello and how are you? (gaelic)

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– Halò, Ciamar a tha thu/sibh ?
Hello and how are you? (gaelic)
We’re in Edinburgh, Scotland

Arrived in Edinburgh via train on Mon 8 September after a restful morning at Robin Hood’s Bay. What a magnificent city from initial impressions. We are staying in the historical old city on the Royal Mile, great walking location for all major landmarks.
First night we quickly dashed out for a quick bite and a 'wee' walk around town.
Tuesday 9 September – we had huge sleep in, hit the gym and yoga before heading out for a walk around the Edinburgh Castle and old city. We went to National Art Gallery and then Edinburgh City Art Centre to see a brilliant exhibition by David Mach called ‘Precious Light’, an interpretation of the King James Bible, a celebration 1611 – 2011, using sculptures with matchsticks and coat hangers and giant collages depicting key chapters of the bible. Really interesting exhibition concept as the artist is in-house and you can see him working on a series of new collages with his team that will be displayed at the end of this exhibition. Similar to the American artist, Jeff Koon who ‘creates’ and then his teams’ make’ the pieces.

We also progressed our planning of some walks in the Scottish Highlands booking B&Bs, cars and also sorting our flights and accommodation to Amsterdam. So we’re all sorted now with still some gaps to fill in India before our yoga ashram visit and what we'll do for Christmas / New Year and our 2012 destinations. Did you know you could book a trek across majority of the Himalayas, Nepal that is 157 days in duration? Good way to fill in half a year if you nothing else to do!!.

We had dinner at Turkish restaurant, which did not serve any alcohol, so no pints for Dave (cue grasp). That’s ok as most of the pubs around are open to at least 3.00am so if anyone is gagging for a beer you won’t miss out in this town. There are also pub crawl tours, ghost tours, underground city tours all gathering after 9.00pm near where we're staying
P.S we had sushi everyday for lunch – heavenly for a change I’ll tell you, really missing my sushi fix.

On Wednesday we experienced four seasons in one day and in fact within a large city block we were walking around – picture this, sunshine and mild, then windy and chilly, then almost sleet type rain coupled with gale force winds. We have been wrapped up in our fleeces, caps, scarves, gloves and rain jackets as it is so cold but still it is all relative as we saw some Russians guests near our hotel are walking around in t-shirts.

On Wednesday 8 September, we walked to the Scotland Gallery of Modern Art, which was wonderful as we went through busy funky West End area and also got to view some beautiful stately historical homes, four storey brownstone terraces and beautiful gardens to reach the gallery. The gallery itself was quite compact but was exhibiting giant outdoor sculptures by Tony Cragg. One of his sculptures is now gracing the entrance at The Louvre, Paris, a bright red heart. We had a lovely afternoon tea in the café, which was delicious, I had ginger oat slice (to die for) with yummy lemongrass and ginger tea (nice matching I thought) and Dave had a wholemeal scone, jam and cream and pot of tea. We had lovely walk back to hotel before Dave popped out for a wee haircut.
Dinner was at ‘The World’s End’ pub which was fantastic. We were warmly welcomed in a tiny little pub that was packed with locals and enjoyed a great tasting meal and couple of pints for Dave.

We loved our quick visit to Edinburgh, such a beautiful and vibrant city. Our timing was bit off as we missed the Edinburgh Royal Tattoo, which finished their performances at the end of August, and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, which ended on 4 September.

Now we’re off to the Scottish Highlands to do some hiking for up to 6 days subject on the weather conditions.

Ciao xx

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Photos

Hmmm...
Museum of Modern Art exhibit