Roger and Jenny then took us back to their house for dinner. Twenty four years ago they visited us when Mel was living with us, and that night Roger told us we had to come to England and he would open a bottle of port. Well, he kept his promise and he still had the bottle of 1988 vintage port that he had kept waiting for us to arrive.
Unfortunately that night Jim broke another tooth, this time on the other side. So he now had a temporary filling from Cambodia that he had been told to avoid eating on, and now a broken tooth on the other side!
Thursday was a much needed quiet day, catching up with washing and a walk into the village for lunch. Coming out of the cafe, we discovered it was now raining. After a wet walk back there was time for some more research and finalising of our Scotland and Ireland plans.
A walk around the Marina and back into the village on Friday morning, and then Mel was back from work around lunch time, ready to take Jim to the dentist. To Jim's surprise, the dentist wasn't overly concerned with it, putting a cover of the broken bit to smooth it, but telling him he will probably need a crown some time in the future. This cost us the grand total of eighteen pounds, so dentistry seems to be a lot dearer in Australia. We are wondering with the expensive crowns etc he is going to need whether we should be planning another holiday to Thailand or Cambodia.
Mel the took us to a supermarket in Burton-Upon-Trent. We thought it was huge, but she told us it was the smallest in the town. We stocked up for our first couple of days in Scotland as we are self catering.
We headed off early on Saturday morning and made good time on the quieter Saturday roads. By lunch time we were at Rosslyn Chapel, made famous in the Da Vinci Code. This place is very unique and hearing its history quite amazing that it has survived. Full credit to the owners (it is on a private estate) where every penny has gone back into preserving and enhancing the area. They have built a beautiful visitor centre next to the chapel which is very well done. They are also very grateful to Dan Brown who can be credited with much of the change. The year before the movie, they had 30,000 visitors, the year after, 176,000. Included in the entry is a free talk and this was also very interesting. It was a great couple of hours, finishing off with a short walk to the Rosslyn Castle, mostly a ruin. Unfortunately we were not allowed to take photos inside the chapel, so I can't show any of the wonderful, mystical carvings
On to Edinburgh where we were very impressed with our lovely apartment that I got at a very reasonable price. Very new and modern and quite roomy, and best of all, only about 100 metres to Holyrood Park which is then just a walk through to the Royal Mile. We spent what was left of the afternoon walking through the park and partway up the Mile. The weather was also surprisingly mild for Edinburgh, about 18 degrees.
Sunday, we again headed through the park and up the Royal Mile with Edinburgh Castle our intended destination. By the time we finally got there after being distracted by the shops, it was 11.30. We could not believe the lines at the ticket office but half an hour later we were finally inside the castle. The views from here are unbelievable, and most will know of it as the home of the Edinburgh Tattoo. They still haven't finished dismantling the scaffolding from this.
Our timing was good for a free tour which was a good introduction before exploring ourselves. Before we knew it we were heading back down the hill as I had booked tickets for the Real Mary King's Close for 3.00 pm. This was very interesting. This part of the town had been levelled at street height and as there is a steep drop down, this meant there were still a number of levels underneath that had been strengthened as supports for the new building. All these rooms still exist and this tour was quite fascinating. We had taken the gold tour which also included a 45 minute above ground street tour. In all this was two hours, so by the time we finished, there wasn't much left of the day. We always knew there was never going to be time for everything, so we hadn't even made it to the New Town area.
Tomorrow off to the Highlands.
No comments:
Post a Comment