Basic geography review – Edinburgh Castle, located in the Scottish city of the same name is located on the top of s hill. Or very small mountain if you so prefer. The top of the battlements look out over the city and you can clearly see the Leith port area and mouth of the river Leith to the north. Leith, originally it’s own city, has been subsumed by Edinburgh.
The Royal Mile refers to the streets connecting the Castle on the top of the hill with Holyrood Palace near the foot of the hill. You don’t need mountain climbing gear to head up the hill, but it is a significant steady up hill climb. Today, like most of the month of August, the city is packed with tourists. Starting with partway up, the street is blocked to traffic All the stores are open, there are street performers everywhere.
Backing up a bit, we took the City-Link #900 from the Buchanan Bus station (only three blocks from the hotel) to Glasgow where we met up with Beverly (retired RAMC officer, colleague while I was stationed in Camberley, We walked a fair amount of the area including going over to see part of Leith (river,
old port area & the memorial to all the Merchant Marines lost in various wars),
We had lunch, sitting at an outdoor table at a pub along the river then headed back toward the old city of Edinburgh. We had been walking to this point but decided that taking a bus for the several miles up hill back toward the old city might just be smarter.
And that takes us to the Royal Mile. We disembarked part way up the hill past the Scottish Parliament and slogged through the massive crowds from there. turns out popular tourist destination was an understatement. Originally, we had planned to have lunch at the Officer’s Mess, but Royalty in the area put that option out of reach. Her membership still got is in the gate. I had wanted to see several of the military museums again (last time was about 2010)
Which turned out to be so crowded as to be challenging but the view of the city from the upper battlements near the chapel looking toward the river was still enjoyable.
From there we headed out and down the winding back road to the park where we spent some time relaxing and then watching some of the performers at the afternoon Caleigh.
I was getting pretty wiped out, so we parted ways at the bus stop where George and I could catch the return leg of the City-Link 900. The first bus going back was full, the second passed on by, but the third turned out to be another double-decker with plenty of seats. The drive back takes well over 90 minutes given traffic and multiple stops on the way.
