Scotland - Day 11

Edinburgh

The group in my cottage decided to travel into Edinburgh by train on Tuesday and meet up with the walkers. By the time we got on the train, I needed to use the toilet and figuring out the door to the train toilet was an adventure in and of itself. First, I couldn't find a handle so a nearby passenger showed me the button to push to get the large curved door to slide open. Inside there were three buttons to operate the door: one to close, one to lock, and one to open. Now that I think about it, I should have taken a picture. Anyways, at first I didn't understand the buttons and figured that when it closed it locked, but the door only seemed 99% closed and a flashing light told me I needed to press the lock button. When I did it wouldn't lock and wouldn't lock, so I decided to risk it and just use the toilet. That didn't work 'cause I was too nervous the door was going to come sliding open, so I tried pressing some more buttons to no avail. Then, suddenly and unfathomably, the button lights changed, and I tried the lock button one more time. It finally worked! Fortunately, getting the door to open was not so difficult, so I could happily get on with my day.

When we got to Edinburgh, we walked up to the castle and took a break and watched the workers setting up the seating for the Tattoo in August while the walkers dropped their packs off at their hostel. I made certain I had my Historic Scotland pass that day and got in without a problem. A tour guide led us around the castle grounds giving us the basic layout of the castle and showing us where significant things were. Then we were free to roam the castle ourselves and visited the Scottish War Memorial, the Great Hall, and the Royal Apartments where Mary, Queen of Scots, gave birth to James VI/I . The highlight was seeing the the Stone of Scone or Stone of Destiny that all kings/queens of Scotland and now of all Great Britain have sat on when they were crowned. The Stone and the Honours of Scotland (the crown, scepter, and sword) were displayed in the Royal Apartments. We also went through a museum chronicling Scotsmen in war and hung around long enough to hear the one o'clock gun.

After a nice lunch just off the Royal Mile, we walked down the Mile to Holyrood Park to hike to the top of Arthur's Seat. Since no one but David S. and I seemed inclined to look at a map, we wound up taking a rather long route to the top, but I suppose it made for a good adventure. We began with a slow ascent around the wrong side of the wrong hill. Somehow, although I started out slow and behind almost everybody break differences led me to wind up ahead of most of the group by the time we got around that hill so I took advantage of the time to find a shortcut off the paved path. The next step of our journey took us up a series of short, steep switchbacks and eventually to the saddleback over to Arthur's Seat. To get to the top we had to pick our way around a hill of loose, slick stones. It was windy at the top and I had to cling to the marker as I took in the view.

As we began our descent, we watched a helicopter land on the lawn behind Holyrood Palace. We suspect the passengers were Prince Charles and Camilla because the walkers heard they were in town the next day. The day was tiring enough that we skipped the dancing in Princes Street Gardens and headed straight back to Bonnybridge for the night.