Day 21 Sunday, July 12 An Edinburgh Day
A comfortable day of sun, clouds and brief showers starts with a bus tour and local guide.
We toured Edinburgh Castle and saw the Scottish Crown Jewels and the history of the Castle is quite amazing as it was used to house prisoners of various wars, including WWII (worth googling). There are cells where prisoners were held, and various artifacts from the various wars (seems Britain is never short of war relics of one sort or another). The Royal Mile is a mile long street, mostly for pedestrians, is lined with shops and pubs and entertainers and at either end is Edinburgh Castle and Holyrood Palace where the Royals stay when in Edinburgh (we tour this as well).
The old city, which includes the Royal Mile, Castle and Palace is on the higher ground and very hilly. The new part of the city was designed by a young Spanish architect and is the first city to use the now standard grid system with streets running north-south and east-west, making it easy to find your way around. There are plenty of pubs and shopping areas and the view from the new city looking up is quite impressive.
This evening there is an optional tour of the moored Royal Yacht Britannia, once the royal residence for the Queen’s state visits and family holidays. They never traveled on it as, apparently, they would fly to meet the yacht and then stay on it. The consensus is that it appears quite small in terms of size of rooms and not as “ritzy” as people expected.
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