Sunday, May 8, 2011

Things I love about our hotel – it’s old; it has a great location; the floors creak enchantingly, the windows open; we can see the castle; we ascend two beautiful staircases when going to our first floor room….wait, what?....those crazy UK people-- they have the Ground Floor, then the Mezzanine Floor, then the First Floor.

Today was great fun, despite the forecast for heavy rains all day, because Farley didn’t have any conference functions to attend so he got to play tourist with me. We started the morning at Holyroodhouse when we took the audio tour and saw amazingly beautiful rooms. The highlight was, of course, seeing Mary Queen of Scots’ bedchamber rooms. So much history took place here. (Hey Nancy – in response to your comment, apparently most royals preferred Holyroodhouse and would only move to the Castle if there were some sort of threat as the Castle was more defendable. One of them referred to the Castle as “that drafty old place”. Holyrood is where Mary’s Italian secretary Rizzo was grabbed by her second hubby Darnley and stabbed to death right in front of her when she was late term pregnant with James. It was in her private chambers (he was dining with Mary & her ladies in waiting). Really small space, it was incredible to finally truly visualize all these things I’ve read about over the years. And YES, you and I need to do a Tudor/Stuart tour of England and Scotland. Gosh, that would be fun!!!!)

The abbey ruins attached to the place were very special. It must have been a magnificent holy

house because even the ruins inspire awe. We weighed whether to climb Arthur’s seat (the top of a high hill next to the palace) or head on our way, and chose the latter. We were rewarded when a downpour erupted not ten minutes later as we were in the gift shop.

As the downpour slowed to a steady rain, we headed out of the Palace to see the bottom half of the Royal Mile. Before long the rain ended and the sun came out! It’s crazy back and forth weather here. We snapped a pretty shot of the top of the Scott monument we glimpsed thru a “close”, which is almost like an alley way. We stopped for a scrumptious meal in an atmospheric pub then headed over to the Princes Street Gardens specifically to see the Floral Clock – which, surprise-- turned out to be DUG UP. Even the hands were gone, there was just a spindle sticking out of the ground. Oh well Ross, thanks for the suggestion anyway.

A quiet afternoon planning our stays for the rest of the trip (St. Andrews, Aberdeen, Balmoral for the next three nights) before Farley went to register for another CFA conference. We grabbed a glass of wine at the conference cocktail party before heading to the highly-recommended Tower Restaurant on top of the Museum of Scotland. DISAPPOINTING!! The spectacular views promised turned out to be mostly rooftops with sun in your eyes. And the wonderful seafood and game menu we had read about was lacking (maybe it was Sunday), so we appetized and ran. Only to be challenged to find anything appealing (more pub food, a nice Scottish restaurant closed, another that looked nice from the outside … not so much), so we grabbed pasta and ox cheek at the hotel (quite good, and guess which of us had which dish…). A little more planning, then off to bed.

St. Andrews on Monday, and no wi-fi, so likely Tuesday night before we post next. By then there will be coastlines and castles and golf and whisky to share. ‘Til then …