Here’s what our third day in Edinburgh looked like:
Unfortunately, Mike has had a cold for a couple of weeks, followed by L for a week, and yesterday G and I started with the sniffles and scratchy throats. I’m all about positive thinking — no time for having a cold! But, it hit G hard, and she had no oompf at all. Despite several fun options for things to do today, she just couldn’t muster the energy. As a result, she and I had a cozy jammie/movie day and Mike and L spent the afternoon at the National Museum of Scotland.
Hopefully with the rest and lots of fluids, we’ll all be back on track tomorrow so we can all get out and about in Edinburgh.
Our first two days were much more fun for everyone!
Day One. We went for a long walk around the Old and New Cities. “Old” being the part of the city from the middle ages and “New” being the part of the city from the 18th century! 🙂 We were there on Saturday, so it was quite busy! We strolled up the Royal Mile toward the castle and stopped to watch a juggler — Super Scott.
He was more about the mildly inappropriate jokes than about the juggling, but the kids were quite entertained by it. When he did get around to juggling, it was impressive, with knives and flaming torches and 5 balls. I was afraid to walk away as I knew we’d get heckled as several others did when they chose to move along. (Mike did quietly back away without getting heckled, which is how he ended up on the other side of us to snap the second picture below.)
The view from the front of the castle is beautiful, and we’re planning to tour it, but we were afraid that we weren’t going to have enough time and didn’t want to rush through it, so we opted to keep moving and check out the European Market, which was just down the “wee” steps, according to one of the castle greeters. 🙂
We walked through the European Market. Literally. We just walked straight through it. It was wall-to-wall people, and the lines for everything were long. As we made our way through the crowds, L said, “I’m getting a little tired of looking at the backs and waists of people.” As we made our way out, we overheard an older fellow on his way into the crowds ask his friends, “What fun is this? I don’t see any fun in this,” and he was actually able to see above and around people! 🙂
We were on the lookout for a place to have a coffee or a snack, but ended up finding the Street of Light on George Street, which looks like a giant castle made of lights. Nearby, G and L got some crepes (see the lighted stand in the picture below), passed some funny bar signs, and continued our walk through the lighted archway and the Scottish Market, which wasn’t quite so busy.
After lots of walking and a dip in the temperature, we decided to hop on a double-decker city bus rather than walking another 20 minutes to our apartment. Conveniently, the bus stops right at our doorstop. We ended the evening with a tasty dinner and “A Muppet Christmas Carol.”
Day Two. Headed out to explore The Shore area by our apartment by walking toward the Ocean Terminal (which is a nice shopping mall and where you go to tour the Royal Yacht Britannia). On our way, we saw a cool boat and fish sculpture and the Dazzle ship docked nearby. We learned after getting back to the apartment that Dazzle ships were used during WWI as a system of camouflage, which used disorientating shapes to make it difficult to estimate a ship’s range, speed and direction of travel! There are Dazzle ships docked on the rivers of Liverpool and London as symbols of the commemoration period from 2014 to 2018. The project recently moved to Scotland, with a fourth new commission.
At the Ocean Terminal, we found some cool animatronic animals displayed throughout the mall. as well as a double-decker carousel! There was also a lego version of the Royal Yacht Britannia and a model of the nylon shipped used in the Queen’s 90th birthday parade.
As we meandered back towards our apartment, we came across some cool old buildings and historical markers in the area we are staying.
We decided to have a late lunch/early dinner at The Cameo, which we’d passed on our way to the Ocean Terminal. They had a clever sidewalk sign that read “The weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful. Cameo, Cameo, Cameo!” 🙂 The whole restaurant has a subtle theater theme to it — gotta love a theme! 🙂 Areas of the restaurant were called “the stalls,” “box seats,” “the upper circle” and our table had a box for the menus labeled “Box Office No. 21.” And they had the best tartan covered chairs and bar stools!!
Yummy Oreo cheesecake dessert for the kids:
There was also a giant sculpture of something…not sure who/what it was, but think it must be theater-related. Can you tell us what it is??
As we were finishing up, a couple of windowless vans pulled up. We noticed when they opened the doors, that they were full of electronic equipment, like ones in those shows where someone hides in the van while they tell someone inside a location what to say, do, etc. When we walked out, the street was lined with the vans and a couple of huge semi trucks! We were all very curious, so L asked one of the guys if they were filming something. 🙂 The guys told him yes and then went on to explain it’s for the BBC and is some murder mystery show about students. I looked it up later and am pretty sure it was for an episode of a show called “Clique” about university life that “goes to some pretty dark places.” The show is a six-part drama created by writer Jess Brittain. I don’t know if it’s available in the U.S. or not.
We decided to end the evening by watching “The Grinch,” which was a DVD in our apartment. It wasn’t an original copy but must have been recorded and then hand labeled on the CD. L and Mike were sorely disappointed to find out it was the Jim Carrey movie version, not the animated classic. A good day regardless. 🙂
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