Travels around Edinburgh

Bright and early Wednesday morning, my mom arrived at Edinburgh Airport for a week and a half visit. Fortunately it was a relatively nice day. After dropping our bags at our B&B on the Royal Terrace. We took it slow, being the first day of our adventures, and took a walk exploring the area around Princes Street.

The following day we went to the National Gallery in the morning. I had been there once before, but only for a short while. Since it was free, it had been a nice place to stop on a rainy day. The Gallery has a great variety of paintings, one or two from many different artists as opposed to a lot from a few. Some of the rooms were rather packed, with paintings from floor to ceiling. The first two rooms had some paintings from the National Portrait Gallery, which is closed due to renovation; it was neat to see a variety of faces from Scottish history, from kings and generals to mathematicians and musicians. There were some nice architecture paintings - I always like ones of cathedrals - and some dramatic ones towards the end.

We stopped at my dorm room and then at St Giles Cathedral afterwards, which is always a pleasurable stop. We also went to Greyfriar's Kirk and the surrounding cemetery, where we payed a visit to Voldemort's grave. We ended up at a Mexican restaurant that night, at which we had a slight mishap involving a candle and a glove, but all ended well...

On Friday, we went to the Botanic Gardens. It was another nice day, and the gardens themselves were lovely. There was a great variety of plants, and a sufficient amount were in bloom at the time. We went through the greenhouses as well, which looked quite old, and were very extensive. There was even a small aquarium, for aquatic plants, although it was somewhat smaller than we were expecting. There was also a prehistoric log in one of the courtyards. We stopped for tea and scones at the cafe in the center of the gardens, which is up on a hill and gave a very nice view of the city.

After a break back at the B&B, we headed for the castle. Unfortunately our nice sunny weather had, typically, turned a bit cloudy, but it was still clear enough to see across the city. It was nice to see the castle again, and we inevitably stopped for tea afterwards in the cafe. We had some Italian as an early dinner, and later on headed out again to try out a local comedy club. The acts we saw had some good moments, so it was a nice end to the day.

On Saturday, we went to the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the Queen's residence in Edinburgh. Once again, it was a beautiful day. The palace was quite nice, as to be expected. There was an audio tour which came with admission, which was informative and less intrusive than signs, so that was nice. The palace had some interesting history and details, and it looked like a palace still in use, which of course it is, rather than a scene set up for museum purposes. The history regarding Mary Queen of Scots in one of the towers was an interesting facet of the royal past and the palace's history, and the attached ruined abbey added a medieval flair to the picture.

Sunday after church, we went to the Museum of Modern Art for a short while; it is a very nice setting, and they had some great paintings of all sorts. There was a large earthwork landscaping thing outside with some swans, which was nice as well - it was another sunny day too.

Later that day, I headed off on my own for Glasgow to see two of my favorite bands performing together. I hadn't seen either of them before, so I was pretty excited, as both bands are from Scandinavia and don't tour America all that much. The concert was absolutely fantastic, and I had a great time!

And the following day, we headed off to the Isle of Skye...