The good news and the bad is that we’ve arrived in Edinburgh

After a great week that started in Dublin we came to the end of our fabulous cruise adventure this morning. It was hard to say goodbye to the luxury and service of this great ship and cruise line. The good news is two fold. One, I’ve already got my next cruise with them booked and two, we still have 3 nights in Edinburgh to enjoy so it’s not the end of our adventure.

Upon exit from the cruise terminal on the harbour of the Firth of Forth there were several volunteers who were helping people make disembarking arrangements. Many were waiting for taxis, but we opted to take the newish tram into the city with helpful advice from a volunteer. It was fast, efficient, cheap and an adventure. Our hotel was about a 3 minute walk from the tram station and we found it no problem. The hotel is an older one, but comfortable enough and more reasonable than many others I researched. It was too early to check in so we dumped our suitcases off at the hotel and went exploring. Once again we chose a hop-on, hop-off bus to give us an overview of the city and allow us to get oriented. We first did a tour of the Old Town area where the live guide gave us a pile of great info, little of which I remember.

I do remember a story of Sir Walter Scott, to whom one of the most iconic landmarks in Edinburgh is dedicated and stands directly across the street from our hotel. In addition to being the poet and author that he’s known for, it is said that he was knighted for neither of those, but for the fact he located “the Honours”, the crown of the King of Scotland after they had been hidden to keep them from Oliver Cromwell’s army.

After doing one loop of the Red Line we hopped off and walked to the Royal Mile to find tea and a scone. By now the early clouds had burned off and the sun had broken out and it was a glorious blue sky day. Still it wasn’t too crowded on the Royal Mile and we found a great little spot where the scones were excellent.

I didn’t take too many pictures today and I have to say that to this point, Edinburgh was a bit overwhelming. I couldn’t decide what to aim the camera at so I didn’t aim it at anything and just took the experience all in. So much to see, so many stories to hear, so much fabulous architecture, so many levels to the city, and so many scones to eat.

Fun Facts about Edinburgh:

– Edinburgh Castle, which is an overwhelmingly dominant feature of the city is perched atop Castle Rock, which is an extinct volcano. At one p.m. every day, the “One O’Clock Gun” fires a shot from the castle.

– The Royal Mile is actually 1 mile, and 107 yards long.

– Edinburgh is supposedly the most green city in the UK, with more trees per person than any other city.

– Edinburgh was JK Rowlings inspiration for the Harry Potter books and she wrote much of them in this city.

– they spell whiskey, “whisky” here.

– Sir Sean Connery was born in Edinburgh (1930) as was Robert Louis Stevenson, the novelist, essayist and poet (1850)

– when driving over the cobblestones of Edinburgh, the buses tend to shake and rattle a bit and that’s called being “shuggled”.

Next it was on to the HOHO Bus again and this time to the Blue Line which went a little further afield than the Old Town. It headed north toward the Firth of Forth through interesting neighbourhoods along the way. We decided it was such a beautiful day that a walk in the Royal Botanic Garden would be nice. And it was. We have missed the rhododendron and azalea blooms as it’s too late in the season, but the woodland forest trails, and the rock garden were beautifully done. We spent about an hour wandering the trails and then were off again to the next destination.

The bus headed toward and along the Firth and past the New Haven Harbour and we arrived at the Royal Britannia exhibit, back at the cruise ship terminal area where we landed on the Star Legend this morning.

The tour of the Britannia was really interesting. They are still working on the infrastructure for the exhibit and it will be a really great experience when they’re finished. We got to see pretty much all areas of the ship from the Commander’s post to the medical centre.

We took the Blue Line bus back to the start and headed on foot to our hotel beat after nearly 13,000 steps and 8 km of walking today. Luckily the hotel has a really comfortable lounge and dining room as we didn’t feel very adventurous and certainly didn’t feel like hoofing it anywhere this evening. We were tucked in pretty early but anxious to get exploring in the morning.