Edinburgh

September 5, 2025

We got up a bit later than planned. Breakfast, showered and dressed. We left about 9:25. Everyone needed coffee so we stopped at Blank Street Coffee. Then we headed down to the Princes Street Gardens and walked through them. As it was just about 10:00 we went into the Scottish National Gallery. The first building had an exhibition that you needed to pay for, but we just wanted to see the gallery. Walked back to that building and went in and saw the paintings.

Next we headed towards the Royal Mile. We wandered and roamed and saw the shops. Stopped into St Giles' Cathedral. Always beautiful. Eventually we headed towards Greyfriars Bobby's Bar for lunch. After that we went into the National Museum of Scotland to see the Lewis Chess pieces. There are 11 there. The museum is huge. I asked someone where the pieces were but we did not find them. Asked someone else and she took us straight to them.

When we left we went over to the Greyfriars Kirkyard to see the Graves. As it was getting on in the day we headed down towards Palace of Holyroodhouse. Rilla and Jeremy stopped in The Elephant House for a butter beer. As we continued down the Mile, we sat on a bench and realized we were across from the Bakehouse Close where they filmed some Outlander scenes. As we entered the close we recognized the building where Jamie had his printing press.

We were early for our tour and needed something to beat before our Holyrood tour, so we walked back up the Royal Mile and found Cafe Vivo. The food was good.

Back down to Holyrood and waited for our tour. Our guide was very good, taking us through the palace. We went into one of the family rooms that is not normally open to the public.

The Abbey ruins were impressive, and the garden was nice. Arthur's Seat was in the distance and just beautiful.

After the tour we walked back to the Destiny. On one of the streets they were filming a period drama with a horse pulling a carriage down the street. Stopped into the M&S to get breakfast for tomorrow.