All Who Wander Are Not Lost

Monday 28 August 2017

We could hear cows mooing and little birds chirping when we woke up this morning as we are just out of Edinburgh – much better than the sound of cars and sirens.  Went down to breakfast but limited myself to fruit salad, cereal and toast this morning as I’m not usually a big breakfast eater and have had too many cooked breakfasts in a row.   We had a big bag of washing to deal with and was hoping the hotel would take it off our hands but they don’t offer a laundry service so they wrote down the name of a laundrette in the nearby town of Musselburgh so we headed there after breakfast. 

Wandered the high street of Musselburgh while we waited (it offers TWO electric cigarette shops – they are very popular over here and we are getting used to walking through big clouds of cigarette smoke only to discover it is aromatic vapour instead).  The laundrette had huge dryers so the laundry didn’t take long and I must admit to a certain mesmerised fascination in watching clothes tumble in a dryer!

 

We headed off to the nearby park-n-ride at Newcraighall and caught the train into central Edinburgh and headed off to explore the city.  We headed up to the Royal mile and meandered our way up the street to the castle.  It is the last day of the festival today so there are lots of people handing out flyers to shows and lots of street performers so a very vibrant atmosphere.  Also a very crowded one and the congestion only got worse as we reached the castle and joined the queue.  Finally got our tickets and then did the tourist shuffle around the castle.  We saw all  we wanted to see, including the very splendid views out across the city, but we drew the line at the 30 minute queue  to the see the Scottish crown jewels.  We’ll come back one day off peak and look at inside stuff!  All around the castle walls were huge stacks of fireworks being prepared for tonight’s festival fireworks finale which should look pretty spectacular.  We could possibly walk up Carberry Hill next to our hotel to watch them but by 9pm our bodies might have other plans (Carberry Hill, by the way, is where Mary Queen of Scots surrendered to the English confederate lords before being imprisoned in Linlithgow Palace).

We soon got tired of the constant jostling crowds at the castle and headed back into the old town and wandered the streets and lynds.  Found a modest little kebab shop off the main tourist drag so had a reasonably priced (but very nice) chicken wrap for a late lunch.  Continued our wanderings and eventually made our way all the way down the hill to Holyrood Palace.  Admired it through the gates and then wended our way back up Canongate and stopped into Jenner’s Department store for a cuppa.

Enough was enough and back to the train station and a short ride back to Newcraighall station to collect the car and to Carberry Tower Mansion. The only dinner booking they could offer was at 8:45 so went to Dalkieth and found a bistro called Mercat and had a couple of salad dinners and as Larry was on a no alcohol day only Jenny had a cider.

Back to Carberry Tower and an early night.