Slightly wet today, drizzly, it did get worse. 10am. It took all of 2 minutes to cross two streets to the Holyrood Palace reception area. We purchased the Palace with garden included and Queens Gallery tours. We absolutely loved both of them. The Holyrood Palace is where the Queen stays when residing in Scotland. She stays thereu for a week from the end of June to July each year.

She hosts a garden party for 8000 in the Gardens, under the stunning big shade trees. Zara Phillips had her wedding reception in the palace.

The Abbey is quite a relic, such a shame the roof collapsed.

Queens Gallery is presently housing an exhibition of Canaletto's works, sooo detailed. WHY are there always men painters, sculptors etc? Where were all the women, surely they must have had talent back then, I guess they were toooo busy having to cook and wait on the guys to allow them to do their thing????

I’ve googled and struggle to find any before the mid 19th century. Painters? I found an interesting one here: https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/dinner_party/place_settings/artemisia_gentileschi

12.30 Coffee & a biscuit time, back across the street at our wee apartment. This is our last day here so we didn’t really want to waste it. By now the rain was falling softly.

We decided to walk to the bus stop on Regent Road, about 8mins away. The bus drivers are so patient with us! This one kept asking where we wanted to go? anywhere, we just want to ride the bus into the country, be like a local, he laughed and sold us a ticket and told us how we could use it. We rode his bus to Musselburgh, alighted there, and went to the local pub for a couple of hours. After an hour of talking to a chap at the end of the bar, another one asked us where we were from, NZ, there was great laughter, they'd been taking bets and the young barman thought we were Americans.

3.30pm we caught the bus back to Edinburgh, only we overshot our stop and had to take another two to get back. Lots of fun, no dramas.

10pm. Have to start packing our bags, we leave here 9am to pick up rental car at the airport.