Edinburgh Day Four

Today we decided to take it easy, so we bought a ticket for the Edinburgh Tour Bus. You can ride all day and hop off when you want to see something then hop back on for the rest of the ride. Each tour guide tells the story a little differently so you get a variety of information while you just sit and look. We wanted to see the John Knox House but it was closed (Sunday) so we went to see St. Giles Cathedral, which is the oldest church in Edinburgh. Our tour guide said that it is not a cathedral because it is the Church of Scotland. I think that it may have once been a cathedral and after the reformation, led by John Knox, it became Protestant.



It is beautiful inside, but not nearly as grand as some other churches we have seen. One of the tour guides said that Edinburgh does not do anything to excess. Perhaps this is also reflected in the architecture. The column in the photo below is one of the oldest parts of the building. This is the church where the Order of the Thistles assembles when they have business to conduct or someone to knight. The Queen of England is the head of the Order of the Thistles.



The tour bus took us by the Grass Market, an area that was used for trading of animals. There is a wide space between the two sides of the street where grass once grew, for the cows, sheep and horses to eat. At the end of the street there is a round stone that marks the spot where Edinburgh once held public executions. They say hundreds of people turned out to watch them. We hopped off here to take a look around and took a break at the White Hart Cafe, on the site of the oldest pub in Edinburgh.



At the end of the day we returned to the Royal Mile to have dinner at the World's End. This pub got its name from its location. It is situated near the city wall, which the residents of Edinburgh cosidered to be the end of their world. The food here was great! I had a lamb roast with potatoes and Yorkshire pudding. Garold ordered cranachan for dessert: raspberries soaked in whiskey with granola and creme and a shortbread cookie.



On the bus ride home we had a little trouble figuring out which stop to take, but a very nice elderly couple stood up to help us out. The people of Edinburgh are some of the friendliest I've ever encountered. At least half dozen times in the last few days people have offered to help us find our way around.

Edinburgh Day Three

Today we took a bus to the city center and went to the National Museum of Scotland. On the way there we passed by the Court of Judiciary building where this man was playing the bagpipes.



The museum was pretty nice but not organized as well as some. We wandered around for a long time just looking for exhibits we wanted to see. Some of the more interesting exhibits included a giant steam engine, a skeleton of a young Viking boy of about 12 whose bones show that he was cut into four pieces and buried along with animals....perhaps as a sacrifice, and this life-sized effigy of Mary Queen of Scots that was commissioned by her son, James I, perhaps out of guilt for distancing himself from her during her lifetime.



And there was of course a display of a wide variety of items designed to torture and kill...this seems to be a recurring theme in European museums. Here's a photo of a guillotine that was once used in Scotland, but not for Queen Mary.



After trudging through the museum for several hours along with hoards of school children on a field trip, we were ready for a quiet and peaceful retreat. Lucky for us this nearby garden was free and open to the public.



Around 5 or 6 went back to the apartment, collected our luggage and called a cab to drive us over to the other (West) side of Edinburgh, where we will stay at the Beverly B & B for a few days. On the recommendation of our hostess we walked a couple of blocks to the Hampton Pub for dinner. When we arrived, the place was full of people who were engrossed in watching a soccer game (here they call it football) on TV; once the game was over many people left. I tried the fish (haddock from the North Sea) and chips and Garold had the lasagna.
Some random observations on food in Scotland:
tomatoes, mushrooms and beans are served for breakfast
sausage is served everywhere all the time
vinegar is on almost every table
silver settings almost always include a big (serving) spoon