Sunday in Edinburgh

July 31:  We had a thorough day in Edinburgh.  We took the local train from North Queensferry to Edinburgh-Waverly, the main train station, arriving about 10:30 am.  We walk through a close to the Royal Mile and up to the Castle to collect Elaine's pre-paid ticket.  The scaffolding for the Military Tattoo was in place, which starts on August 2nd for a month.

We walked partway downhill to St. Giles Cathedral to attend the 11:30 am church service - choir and sermon.  It started with prelude by Tallis and ended with a Fugue by Mendelssohn, played on a magnificent organ.  In between, we sung a few hymns and heard a sermon by a newly hired American paster from Florida.  The choir was quite good, too.

St. Giles Cathedral

Organ inside St. Giles

After church, Elaine went to tour the Castle.  Betsy and I explored the neighborhood south of the Royal Mile.  We walked through Grass Market to Greyfriars Abbey/Cemetery.  The neighborhood is were JK Rowlings first began writing Harry Potter stories, we saw a tour group being escorted around complete with wands, and noticed a grave marker to a McGonagal (inspiration for JK Rowling).  We next explored the first floor of the National Museum of Scotland (Smithsonian-like) with an eclectic collection of Scottish artifacts and recognizing famous people.  One interesting aside for those of you who were in Glasgow, we saw this clock in the Museum and it might of been made by the same guy who did all the crazy whirligigs in the Kinetic Museum, Glasgow.

We were meeting Elaine at Deacon Brodie Pub, supposedly the inspiration for Robert Louis Stevenson's story Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  On the way the went quickly through a Scotland National Library exhibit on Maps.

After drinks in the pub, we walked down the rest of the Royal Mile to Holyrood Palace, the royal residence in Scotland.  No one was at home from the royal family (probably on the way to Balmoral instead), so we paid for entry and toured the palace, with audioguides.  The layout of rooms resembles the standard procession for a royal visit in historic times.  One starts in large public spaces and works to increasing intimate spaces, culminating in the bedroom, though the king (or queen) never slept in this room.  We saw a few more rooms used by Mary, Queen of Scots, located in the oldest tower of the palace.  We next visited a special exhibit of Queen Elizabeth's ceremonial dresses.  We exited through the ruins of the abbey, which was the original structure on the site.

Abbey Ruin at Holyrood Palace

We walked to New Town, tried to view the Queens Garden, but it is evidently private and ended up at a Middle Eastern restaurant for dinner.  We each ordered three mezze plates and shared all around.  Our dinner included dessert, and we all chose profiteroles.

We walked along Princes Street to the Haymarket Train station for the ride back to North Queensferry.

Edinburgh Castle