Day 14 (Tuesday) Greenock, Scotland

---

Happy Birthday to Patterson & Melody!!! They had a party on Sunday, but today is their actual birthday. Grandma brought the party invitation with their picture, and has been showing it to lots of people. So we are thinking of you both on your birthday. In honor of arriving in Scotland and the twin’s birthday we had our picture taken with a bagpipe player, since according to Tessa, Melody really likes the bagpipes.

This is going to be a difficult BLOG to write. It was very interesting but we did so much that stuff is bound to be left out or reported incorrectly. But we will do our best to describe a really neat day.

The ship arrived on schedule at 8:00 in Greenock Scotland. So we were up early for breakfast before our tour left shortly after 8:00. There were 9 buses of people going on our tour today. Greenock is the port town on the River Clyde. Our bus headed east along the river and into the city of Glasgow. It is centrally located pretty much in the middle of Scotland, but we went on through and continued east until we reached Edinburgh. All along the way the guide gave us a lot of interesting information about what we were passing. Two hours later we reached the capital of Scotland.

First we spent about an hour traveling through the city, visiting both the old town (started in roughly 1000 AD), the new town (built roughly 1770-1800), the shopping district, the finance district, and many government centers. The old town had no particular rhyme or reason and just basically evolved and got repeatedly reinvented over many centuries. It tended to hug the base of a hill (actually the basalt remains of a long extinct volcano). The Scots have a nearly endless history of battles and wars, which over the years was kind of hard on the people as well as the towns. So the old town has many narrow winding streets. In the last 18th century, 6 districts of the city were basically wiped out and rebuilt following fairly strict guidelines of architectural style (how the doors/windows should look, how far from the streets to build, what style of stone to use, etc) using a grid. Those districts have been maintained and still are very visible. There is a street called the Royal Mile running through the old town which has many shops, markets, and arcade areas. It has both up-scale and tourist places. The United Bank of Scotland and the Royal Bank of Scotland are both headquartered in Edinburgh. Many other banks also have major centers, all in the same area of town. Wherever we went the city seemed to be neat and clean, with much color and flash. It seems like a place which would be interesting to spend more time but with a less hectic pace.

About 11:30 we parked at the castle. It is literally (and figuratively) the pinnacle of the city. There was a steep climb, but we got to the castle. Our guide gave us a narrated tour of the castle grounds. Unfortunately by the time we were free to explore, there was not much time before we had to get back to the bus. That meant we got to visit the Grand Hall (where the kings held their big parties). We also saw the Scottish National War Memorial (since there have been wars and heroes for about 1000 years, there were many flags/banners/etc). We also visited the rooms where King James VI of Scotland was born to Mary Queen of Scotts. He later became King James the First of England. However we did not have time to go through the long line waiting to see the royal chambers and the Scottish Crown Jewels. Janet was able to buy some traditional cross stitch patterns in the castle gift shop.

After we got back to the bus we went to the Thistle, King James Hotel. We had a good lunch and then had more than an hour for shopping or walking around on our own. We found an ATM and got some British Pounds, and then visited some of the local stores. Then David climbed to the top of a park (with a great overlook of the city & castle) to take more pictures. Everyone reassembled at the meeting point for the bus and we headed back to the ship. All day, it was very impressive how the driver was able to maneuver a large bus past lots of smaller vehicles and through the narrow, winding streets. All along the way the guide had a wide variety of facts and information. We really got a good tour today. It was cloudy again today, but the only time it rained was during the bus ride back to Greenock – the temperature only got to the low 50s today, but we were bundled up pretty well.

By the time we returned to the ship and got through security it was just about 6:00 so we went straight to dinner. There were more bagpipe players at the dock, but we didn’t really pay them proper attention. We had another good dinner, but we were pretty tired after a long day. We were actually only the 2nd couple to get to our table, with the 3rd couple showing up a little later – everyone was running late today. We all compared stories about what we did and saw, and since we all did something different then it was pretty interesting. However, rather than go down to the theater for a show, we just settled down in the room and watched the Green Hornet movie (not what we were expecting – glad we did not pay money to see it in a theater). But we didn’t really feel up to any other events today. The description called this a “moderately paced” tour, but we were pretty tired by the end. It was a really interesting day, even if we did have a lot of time in a bus. So good night for this evening.

---

Photos

Great Hall
Edinburgh Castle Scotland

Scenic Outlook of Edinburgh
Edinburgh Scotland