A Little More Edinburgh (Day 13, Part 3 of 3)

We left the Scottish Heritage Center and decided to walk towards Edinburgh Castle.  It stands on Castle Rock. There has been a royal castle on the rock since at least the reign of David I in the 12th century, and the site continued to be a royal residence until 1633.

We hadn't purchased tickets to go inside, so we just took a few pictures with the mass of other tourists.  Each summer Edinburgh Castle’s Esplanade is transformed into a concert venue. We thought the stadium really detracted from the castle.

A few more Edinburgh sites.  The Castle Hill Primary School opened in 1889 and is now closed as a school.  The building now houses The Scottish Whisky Experience which tells the story of the history of whisky making, from the stills in the hills to the world wide industry of today.

The Tolbooth-Highland-St John's Church was constructed between 1842 and 1845.  It was originally designed as a meeting hall for the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. From 1929 the building was used as a church until the mid-1980s. Today it is the home of the Edinburgh International Festival and is used as a ticket office, information center and performance venue.

 

The streets were very crowded, especially the closer we were to Edinburgh Castle.  We later learned that it was a bank holiday in the UK, so it wasn't just tourists clogging up the streets!

We made our way back to the train station to head back to South Queensferry.

The water taxis back to the ship were chaotic again, but we grabbed a seat on the upper deck and enjoyed the beautiful weather while we waited.

Have I mentioned the beautiful weather?

Unfortunately what the beautiful weather and sunshine brought with it was very high pollen.  My allergies really started getting to me on this day and by the end of the day I had completely lost my voice! 

We had a relatively mellow evening once we were back on board.  We had dinner at Alfredo's.  I had pizza and Les had a calzone.  This was the one place where we consistently had excellent service.  I got my laundry done and then we relaxed in our room.  I was feeling just bad enough to not want to go out for gelato, luckily we had chocolate in our room!