We headed down to find coffee and the departure point for our free walking tour where we learned a lot about Edinburgh, including the fact that it was 'Bobby Day', the anniversary of the death of Greyfriar's Bobby, a dog who stood at his owner's grave for 14 years after his owner had died. So to celebrate, Cruachan (3 and 4, I think?) the official Shetland ponies of the Scottish army had come to the churchyard for a ceremony!
With bagpipes!
We were very cold by this point but had a good overview of the old town (the new town was built as overflow from the old town once there was less threat of invasion and the old town was too full). We found lunch and headed to the National Gallery where we found a nice collection of paintings, including some from Norway, artists whose work I had seen in Oslo just a few days before. How odd! We rested for a while before heading out on our nighttime walking tour. We found out that 'The World's End' where we had eaten used to be the pub at the end of the street in front of the gates to leave the city and you used to go there before leaving (as leaving the walled city was quite dangerous) to have a drink! Now the street is much longer and essentially leads all the way back to our accommodation, but we were pleased for having chosen such an excellent pub quite by chance! The night tour discussed grave robbing, pall bearers dying from falling down stairs, ghosts, witches, canibals and other creepy things but overall very good (not too creepy) and we chose another pub for Cullen Skink (yummy Scottish fish chowder) and more goat cheese for me (the blood pudding had had goat cheese the night before and this time I had vegetables with goat cheese, yum!).
Headed out the next morning on a lovely tour of more of Scotland. Map here:
We saw cows! (The tourist area where they usually are didn't have any in winter so we were able to do a special stop as we had a small bus!)
And sheep
And deeply beautiful scenery (I can't remember the names of all the places we were, but it was lovely!)
We saw cows! (The tourist area where they usually are didn't have any in winter so we were able to do a special stop as we had a small bus!)
And sheep
And deeply beautiful scenery (I can't remember the names of all the places we were, but it was lovely!)
This was Glencoe, I think, very valuable house because you can't build anything new in a national park so only existing structures are allowed to stay! According to very nice tour guide, Jamie.
We elected to take a longer Loch Ness cruise and only see the Urqhart Castle (Whoops Aunt Laurel!) but it was great to be on the boat and searching for Nessie!
A crown in the trees... I bet the queen planted that!
No sign of her :-(
We returned to Edinburgh for light dinner and bed, sleeping in the next morning before our informative tour of the Scottish Parliament. Scotland gets to decide things that are specific to them in their own parliament, plus have representatives to the U.K. Parliament. It was very interesting to hear about the very conceptual architecture of the building (combination of representing nature, boats, and people of Scotland) and the way they govern. (They have kind of a combined House of Representatives and Senate in one body with some people elected by region and some elected by proportion of population in that area.) Scottish people on the tour with us were very curious about the costs associated with building and maintenance! Understandably! But it is a cool place! We ended as we began, with lunch at 'The World's End' for mac and cheese with local Cheddar and amazing brownie dessert. (Not Scottish, but delicious) I saw Natalie off and slept (with some exercising) until it was time for my train yesterday morning. Two transfers later I am now successfully in Cambridge and lazing about getting up energy for exploring! Scotland is beautiful and it was lovely to spend time with my friend and get a feel for the city.
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