Today we were keen to head back for a wander around the Old Town and walk up Arthur's Chair. We left the house in fine weather and walked the short distance to Princes Street. This is the main shopping area, about 15 minutes from the apartment. From here we crossed into the St Johns churchyard and strolled around another ancient graveyard. A lot of the details have worn off over the years, but the cemeteries are all picturesque and full of atmosphere.
Up the hill into the Old Town, we walked along the Royal Mile, with all the other tourists . We crossed out and found our way to Grassmarket, another old, interesting area. We were looking for the Elephant House coffee shop, where JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter. It was raining and our map was a small one, torn from the tourist book. We walked up the hill to Greyfriars Bobby, and back down the hill. We continued down a dodgy laneway where I pilfered a map from a backpacker's lobby.
Eventually we found our way back up the hill onto King George IV Bridge and to the Elephant House. It was busy, but the trade seems to move quite quickly. We ordered coffees and a scone to share and found a table by the window in the back room. There is a view over the Castle, which is apparently where JK sat and was inspired. The coffee house doesn't really capitalise on the whole Harry Potter thing.
We popped back onto the Royal Mile and then towards Hollyrood Park to climb up to Arthur's Seat. This is an enormous hill that sits in the background of the Palace. As we began to climb the trail went in 2 directions. We chose the obvious that would give us views over the city. We had started the very steep ascent when we heard pipers starting to play at the palace. We thought the queen might be doing something, so we shopped to watch for a while, as we had a perfect view. The band and guards were doing some sort of ceremonial display. The sound traveled up to us perfectly. They marched, yelled and did drills and then all of a sudden finished and started wandering over to their buses to go back to wherever they came from .
Which meant we had to go back to climbing the big hill. The views were fantastic, looking all over the city and out to the Dockland. It was a bit breezy, but the sun was shining. We reached what seemed to be the top of the path, but not the top of the hill, when the trail started downwards. We reached a junction and found we were between two big hills. The one we were on looked smaller and Ken was keen to climb the big one. It looked too much for me, there were stairs going straight up. There are no signs to really give you any idea of where any of the paths lead, so we headed further up our hill and eventually ended up on the cliff overlooking the city. The views are amazing. There are not a lot of people up there and looking back over the hills you can see walkers rambling all over the place.
We came back down the other side of the hill avoiding the precipice where "the edges are dangerous".
We walked back home, stopping at Sainsburys where we picked up some sandwiches and supplies for home.
Rested, fed and out the door again . We were heading to a Sculpture Gallery but Stella was in no mood to guide us there. She wouldn't even find a satellite signal, so I tried to navigate using Ken's phone. We don't have data, so we're just using online maps. This proved to be very difficult and we kept getting lost. We finally got some sort of guidance and headed in the direction of Jupiter Gallery. It was only about 15kms away but took about an hour.
By the time we got there we only had an hour and the girl selling tickets was concerned as it really needs 2 hours. We had come this far... The main exhibition is in a beautiful woodland, with the sculptures tucked amongst the trees. They were really great, out favourite was the Weeping Girls, statues of little girls crying, hidden beneath their hair. They were so well done, and emotionally engaging. Once out of the woodland we went into an aviary exhibition which was really cool. It was full of finches who perched and hopped around on electric guitars set up on horizontal stands. Every time they touched a string it played a note . They also had cymbals for feeders and twittered as they flew around. It was really entertaining.
We had rushed the viewing, but saved some time to stop at the large Living Domes on the drive out. They are large grassed formations with a pond in between. You actually drive between them to enter and exit the property.
Driving home was once again a challenge. Stella decided we should go through the middle of the city, in peak hour. Luckily the traffic in Edinburgh is not too crazy.
Ken decided we would have pizza for dinner at the local pizza place. We couldn't get a table so we wandered for a while before settling on the pub around the corner, The Bailie. I had whiskey sausages with black pudding mash as I figured I should go Scottish on our last night in town. Ken had enchiladas, not very local at all. A good meal.
Home to pack and watch the end of the soccer. (Portugal won, if you're interested)


Steps 24,915
Kms walked 20