Today was the first sightseeing day of my trip and when I looked out my window, it did not bode well. Everything looked wet and the sky was covered with grey clouds. Both of my sightseeing days in Edinburgh offered opportunities for spectacular views of the city, so I debated for a while which one to do first. I went into a shop and asked the guys at the counter what the weather was supposed to be and learned it's like this 90% of the time.
I decided that it was the best I might get so I headed down to the low end of the Royal Mile to visit the Palace at Holyroodhouse.
Since it is a working Palace, photos were not allowed inside the building but photography was permitted on the grounds, which also included the ruins of Holyrood Abbey. The ticket to the palace included an audioguide, which was very informative and well paced. Since it was winter, the gardens were closed, but the Abbey ruins were open. The abbey was built in the 12th century and has seen royal coronations and has sat in its current condition since the 18th century.
And yes, since Holyroodhouse is a working Palace, the Queen does stay here, although she is usually only here for a few days each summer.After the Palace and Abbey, it was time for lunch so I headed up the Royal Mile and found a nice cafe where I had a cup of tea and an excellent chicken sandwich.
Remember those grey clouds I mentioned earlier? Well, by now they were gone and the sun was out, with some clouds though. So it was time to head back down the Royal Mile to visit Holyrood Park, the 640 acre park that sits behind the Palace. The main feature of the park is Arthur's Seat, a 823 ft rock formation that rises above the city.
Also in the park are the Salisbury Crags, which form a cliff overlooking the city in front of Arthur's Seat. Arthur's Seat is the remnants of an old volcano that last exploded 350 million years ago. The volcano actually had two outlets. Edinburgh Castle sits on the other one.
They say a picture is worth 1,000 words, and I could write a novel with the pictures I took, so I'll post a few of them here and let them speak for themselves. The picture at the end of the previous post was taken from about halfway up Arthur's Seat. The second picture in this set is the ruins of St. Anthony's Chapel, which sits in Holyrood Park.
After spending the entire afternoon trekking around Holyrood Park, I headed back up to the high end of the Royal Mile (there is about a 200 ft elevation difference). It was time for diner and I decided to try haggis, because I felt it was something that had to be done while in Scotland. I don't see what the big deal with it is. I know it's cow stomach, but as long as you don't think about that while eating it, it tastes just like finely ground beef, albeit low quality, with lots of pepper.
After dinner I headed out for a ghost tour of Edinburgh where I learned about a darker side of the city, as well of some of its more notorious citizens, and went into some of the vaults under one of the bridges.
After such an intense day of sightseeing, my legs were sore and I was ready for a good night's sleep to prepare for another day of sightseeing.
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