Philip arrived here in Edinburgh very wearily yesterday afternoon Ready to start his holidays.

This morning when we got up it was a right “braw” day. Which means a lovely day. Well, it was a Scottish summer day. Which means it was steadily dripping with rain!

We decided to be Ultimate Tourists today and take the train into Edinburgh city to explore. It’s only one station away. Edinburgh just drips with history. And it looks very old too. Tall, narrow buildings of rough stone. Narrow, twisting streets on a steep hill. Lots of turns and corners and little nooks and crannys.

We walked up the old main street over the cobbled stones that led up to Edinburgh Castle.

Throngs of tourists everywhere. We were some of them! Lots of umbrellas with sharp points that threatened us at every turn. Lots of queues to get into the interesting parts of the castle.

The blue seats are for the Edinburgh Tattoo in August – just outside the front of Edinburgh Castle

So much history it was overwhelming. So many futile endless wars bickering over trivialities. But challenging to hear the stories of people who died for their faith and convictions.

Being Ultimate Tourists

A great exhibition was The Honours of Scotland – the crown, sceptre and sword of the Scots nation, first used for Mary Queen of Scots in 1543. They are the oldest crown jewels in Europe. Tiny chapels, and huge cannons, dungeons and tunnels.

Rosie looking for the cannon balls of Mons Meg (Big cannon)!

The Cannon Balls

After looking through Edinburgh Castle for several hours, we had a great lunch of Yorkshire pudding and sausages in a nearby pub. Then wandered down the Royal Mile, the long, steep main street of the Old Town. We walked through a couple of big churches – St Giles and Greyfriars which is famous for the story of Greyfriars Bobby (the dog). Wandered round the church cemetery which had a few macabre signs. Saw one church doing a creative tour to engage the public with the Christian past, but we wern’t there at the right time for it.

Being an Ultimate Tourist is exhausting! I found today far more tiring than the much more physically challenging hill climbs that Rosie and I did last week. To build up my strength I cooked apple and rhubarb for our tea with the rhubarb that is growing in John’s backyard, with sheer abundance through benign neglect.  It was delicious!