The Royal Mile

The pedometer sure got a workout today. The cobbles are very uneven, so the calf muscles suffer a little!

Edinburgh has two main streets, the Royal Mile, which has a castle at one end and a palace at the other, and Princes St, which is the shopping street. Guess which one we did first?

We started at Edinburgh Castle, which is the first one that we have found a little disappointing - huge queues and not that much worth seeing.

We followed that with a more interesting (and strenuous) trip through a ‘Close’ which is simply a 6 ft wide sloping street, which is now underground, but which used to be edged by 5 storey tenements. There was a real labyrinth of closes, and the guide was in character. There was also a character (a maid) called Janet Nimmo - her photo bore a marked resemblance to our friend Janet, who was a Nimmo before she married!

The rest of the Mile was full of lots of souvenir shops, lots of tartan, whiskey and heather. Spent an interesting half hour checking out kilts for Ash - learnt all the right bits to measure, using Allan as a model, so that Ash could order online if he wants. Saw lots of kilts that were made in China, but you could certainly tell the difference between those and the real thing, which use 8 yards of tartan.

I was a bit exhausted by then so I left Allan to go down the hill to (and later climb up the hill from) Holyrood Palace - the Queen’s official residence in Scotland. He thought it was one of the better palaces, I think.

I hit the shopping street, but didn’t buy anything (I think I’m having a personality change - I haven’t bought anything of any consequence yet!)

We used buses to get around - the guest house was in a very handy location, and our host a true Scotsman.

Overall, we both loved Edinburgh - I think it is a town that would appeal to young people too, there were certainly plenty of them about.