Well our trip to Edinburgh this time wasn't as nice as
it was last May - in May we weren't expecting nice
weather and were pleasantly surprised. In July one
would expect nice sunny days but in this respect we
were unpleasantly surprised!
We arrived last Sunday morning on what was probably
the best weather we would see all week. As before we
were staying with Barbara, very central to the city,
and after settling in and unpacking decided to spend
day one in the city. Armed with an unlimited bus pass
we spent the day travelling all over the city,
visiting places we already know. This included finding
a nice place for lunch which wasn't easy as most pubs
only offered beef. Eventually we found a nice carvery
where we were able to enjoy both pork and lamb and
lots of lovely vegetables. We went back to our
lodgings in the early evening and watched a good
programme on television.
On Monday we spent a similar day, this time enjoying a
nice Italian lunch out at Corstorphine. We also went
to the station and booked our train tickets for Oban
on Thursday and Inverness on Friday. Again we got back
to the lodgings early in order to watch a good
programme on telly at 9 pm.
Tuesday we went to Stirling for the day, travelling by
train because although cheaper by bus we found we had
just missed one with an hour to wait for the next. But
travelling on First Scot Rail isn't as expensive as it
is back home where First Great Western prices are
really extortionate.
We were not terribly impressed with Stirling - perhaps
seeing it on a dull grey day did not help. We climbed
high above the city to see the castle and even here we
were disappointed because you could not actually see
the castle itself without first paying the ticket
price to get in and we weren't prepared to do that
without first seeing whether it was worth it. It is
impressively expensive to visit some of these castles
- Edinburgh for example costs £10 (around 20 dollars)
to visit.
Wednesday was one of the more enjoyable days. We
decided to visit go on an Inchcolm cruise landing on
Inchcolm Island and this first involved getting a bus
out to South Queensferry which is about 3 miles
outside Edinburgh in a westerly direction. On arrival
at the little town we were very excited at the close
proximity of the Forth rail bridge and took an
assortment of photos but it was a very cold windy day
and we realised we would freeze to death out on the
water. Luckily we came across a charity shop next
where we both bought warm jeans and fleecy tops and
were thus better dressed for a cruise on the Forth.
We arrived on the pier (Hawes Pier) just in time for
the 12.15 departure and the actual cruise proved to be
very enjoyable, with the skipper giving us a running
commentary on the way. Passing the rail bridge we were
told that it took 5000 men working day and night 7
years to build it and it was quite an achievement in
Victorian times, especially as the engineers wanted to
ensure it was built to last - after the disaster of
the first Tay bridge which collapsed and had a train
on it which went down with all 100 passengers lives
lost. The Forth rail bridge opened in March 1890 and
is now considered one of Scotland's national
monuments.
We also passed oil refineries. North Sea oil is
exported here and these refineries are at the end of
500 mile pipelines coming from the North Sea. The
biggest tankers in the world arrive at these terminals
where 3 million gallons per hour of oil can be pumped
in.
As the ferry boat proceeded we were watching the waves
in hopes of seeing seals, porpoises or dolphins but
unfortunately did not see anything apart from little
islands covered in sea birds, some with seals basking
on the shores. There used to be a male dolphin who
swam around the ferry boat, and played in the bow
waves, but unfortunately not any more.
When we arrived at the island we asked the skipper if
we could stay on longer than the one and a half hours
and catch the last boat back instead and he agreed. We
then set off around the island and took several
photos, including visiting the Inchcolm Abbey, where
romantic weddings can still take place. We wanted to
climb the tower until we saw how narrow the spiral
stone step staircase was - anyone over 10 years old
would struggle in that confined space, the steps
little more than 3 or 4 inches wide.
Unfortunately we could not explore the island as
extensively as we would have wished, due to the vast
quantity of nesting sea gulls who swooped upon us if
we got too close to their young. We eventually gave up
the idea of exploration as a bad job. We were lucky
enough to see a puffin however, albeit at a distance
across water on a rocky islet, and I hope that on the
photos I took, it will be visible even with a
magnifying glass!
We arrived back and were really hungry by this time as
there were no shops on the island apart from a gift
shop and nothing edible other than small snacks. We
found a lovely seafront cafe bar and we enjoyed hot
soup, jacket potatoes with prawns and Ann enjoyed a
cafe mocha while I enjoyed a large glass of merlot
rose wine. We were lucky to arrive at the bus stop
just in time for our bus back to Edinburgh and we
arrived back at our lodgings early evening. It had
started to rain by this time so we were lucky to miss
that during the day.
Thursday morning I was up really early, quarter to
five, and we had time for breakfast before getting the
bus to the station for our 7.03 am departure to Oban
which is on the west coast of Scotland. This involved
a change of train at Glasgow with three quarters of an
hour wait between trains.
The train journey from Glasgow to Oban was very
interesting with stunning scenery. We travelled
through the edge of the Grampian mountains and passed
many a beautiful loch along the way. We even saw whole
herds of deer. The countryside in Scotland really is
beautiful. We pulled into Oban at 12.15 with a whole 6
hours to explore this lovely fishing village type
small town.
It was another dry day albeit without any sun and this
time without any wind. The calmness of the water as
one looked across the harbour out to sea was
beautiful. We could have taken an hour's boat trip out
to view seal colonies and later wished we had because
we did not need 6 hours to explore Oban itself. It was
also possible to get a ferry boat across to the Isle
of Mull but I wasn't sure if this was possible in the
time.
We found a nice Indian restaurant for lunch and then
spent the time walking around town in all directions
from the harbour, including buying two loaves of bread
and feeding it to the gulls and baby gulls along the
harbour front, many of whom alighted real close and
took the bread from our hands. (Poor Ann got her hand
pecked when she wasn't quick enough handing it out!)
One even cheekily flew in and took a whole slice from
my hand before I had a chance to break it up.
By 6 pm we were back at the station and soon able to
board the train which left at 6.17. To begin with it
was a pleasant ride through the lovely scenery until
suddenly there were problems with the train and the
only way to proceed was at a snail's pace. This was
made even worse about an hour later when someone using
the loo pulled the emergency cord instead of the chain
and we came to a complete halt! We were almost an hour
late by the time we reached Glasgow and luckily had 10
minutes to get on the train to Edinburgh. We were both
relieved there were still trains available to get us
home the last leg of the journey. It was gone midnight
by the time we got back and straight to sleep as we
had another early start Friday morning.
This was another enjoyable train journey, this time to
Inverness. Our plan that day was to visit a couple of
castles, Urquhart Castle on Loch Ness and one further
out called Eilean Donagh, but it turned out on arrival
in Inverness that we did not have time to visit
either. The bus was leaving at 1.20 pm and we were
amazed to learn that Urquhart Castle on Loch Ness was
15-20 miles outside the city and that the only bus
back was at 3.30 which would get us back in time for
our 6.30 train home. Which meant we would get an hour
or less at our destination to visit Castle and see a
bit of the loch and therefore not worth it. We spent
the day in Inverness itself, and by the end of it we
were both determined to include a few days stay in
Inverness the next time we visit Scotland, as there
are so many lovely places one can visit from
Inverness, including the Isle of Skye. We discovered
on arrival back that we had missed a day of continuous
hard rain in Edinburgh so although just another grey
day in Inverness at least we did not have the rain to
content with.
Today, Saturday is our last day and we spending it in
Edinburgh. There is a bus strike on Lothian buses so
we have been finding our way around anew on the First
buses and managed to get to the places we wanted to
see. Even our airport bus is on strike tomorrow but we
noticed there are alternative buses laid on today and
hopefully early tomorrow as well. We have a taxi
booked for 6.15 to get us to Waverley bridge and then
hopefully the airport bus. If not it will cost us
about £20 for a taxi. As long as we get to the airport
by 7.30, 2 hours before our flight, I don't mind.
Well that is it for the moment and our next trip is
planned for London on 4th August where we will be
staying until the 8th - the highlight of which will be
Carnaval del Pueblo on Sunday 7th August - at Burgess
Park, Camberwell, if anyone reads this in time. It is
an all day event of andean bands, andean dancing, and
food and crafts from Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador and the
Caribbean. With any luck there will better weather on
that London trip.
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