Walked up the Royal Mile watching some of the street performers in the fringe festival including
- Puppeteers
- Acrobatics
- Musicians
- A Predator (Film Monster).
- Ballerinas. They were standing on top of small stone pillars (about 20cms across) with rounded tops. Great balance.
Found the meeting place for the tour I had arranged at the Mercat Cross which is near St. Giles Cathedral.
This is the fourth tour I have been on with other Australians.
The tour usually is up the Royal Mile but it is packed during the festival, so the tour guide takes a different route.
The Mercat Cross is not a religious symbol but the name is the origin of the work Market.
It is also used to make official announcements such as election results and royal births three days after the event as it would have taken that long for a horse and rider to reach Edinburgh from London instead of four hours on the train.
The train reached a peak speed of 218km/h on the trip from London.
The railway line is along the coast and the weather was nasty as the North Sea was very rough.
The East Coast Rail Company has a really good service. They put your luggage in the guard van at Kings Cross and unload it at you destination. This is different than the Cardiff trip as you have to get the luggage onto the train and store it in the carriage yourself.
Very interesting tour with a lot of history included. We walked down to to the grass market which did not sell grass but livestock.
There is a superb view of the castle and volcanic rock outcrop that it sits on. The layout of Edinburgh is a result of ice age activity where a large glacier split in two when it hit the volcanic rock on which the castle sits and scoured two valleys each side.
Edinburgh sits on the top of the resulting ridge and down into the two valleys either side.
There seems to be quite a number of pubs in England,Wales and Scotland that are named 'The White Hart'.
I find this amusing because Arthur C Clarke wrote a series of short stories set in a pub called the white hart. They are some of his funniest stories.
Grass Market was also the site of hangings in the 17th century.
Edinburgh has a number of building that are up to 8 stories tall and built of stone. They are stepped down the side of the valley and start off with 4 stories and increasing in height as the valley falls away.
It was not uncommon for people of different classes to live in the same building and the small alley's (close's) that pass between the buildings were usually covered in waste as Edinburgh does not have
river and most waste products were emptied from the bucket straight into the street.
Edinburgh also is broken in two with a Old City and a recent (300 years) New City the design of which influenced modern city design.
I have to upload the photos still so I will add them tomorrow.
Looking forward to the Tattoo tomorrow night and the highlands tour on Friday. I will probably get on the city sightseeing bus service that operates here as well as it is good value for 13 pounds for a whole 24 hour ticket.
Just had dinner in the hotel bar. I am going to order a starter instead of a main next time as it was a very large piece of fish and chips with a large salad on the side.
It seems that the Scots like there meals large.
The hotel is quite nice. No Air Conditioning in the room but it is comfortable if a little warm.. Wifi Included (usually 20 pounds per day) or wired internet at 10 pounds per day.
The hotel is very interesting in that a lane passes down the middle between reception and the lifts. This lane continues on up to some steps so I think it must be a traditional right of way and they had to accommodate it when the hotel was built. I picked it because it is very close to the railway station and the Royal Mile.
The Wifi is quite fast.
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