May 29 - Edinburgh Scotland

Oh well we slept in a bit owing other the liquor last night, not used to that at all anymore ! But then we did get to the Scottish National Portrait Museum near St Andrews Square, a beautiful old building full of the history of Scotland told through portraits of its people through the ages...

Following our visit we had a nice picnic in St Andrews Square, in spite of the howling 20-25 mph wind, until a big black cloud blew over and started dumping a light chilly rain, so back to the apartment it was nap time anyway...

After a rest and catching up on the news of the morning from the U.S. we decided to walk to the nearest restaurant down Easter Road, which happened to be Polish, The Percy (next door to the Perseverence Bar under the same ownership). The food was great and i was surprised to go into the mens room and see the walls covered in posters for alternative kinds of music. Edinburgh is quite the mod place, its Fringe Festival is world famous and goes for weeks toward the end of the summer.

After a hearty tasty and filling dinner we took a stroll over to Leith Walk and caught the Tram up to the town center, but, since we are traveling in the morning we'll have an early wake up and decided just go back, get in and pack... as it doesn't get dark til 10pm, we have been staying up quite later here nearly midnight. So now, all packed and ready to go in the morning. Three and a half hour train from Waverly station up to Inverness tomorrow... Culloden battlefield is the big draw up there, that was in 1745 i think and it was effectively the end of the clans ruling, the Brits were in charge after that bloody afair. There was a lot of history and portraits of the Jacobites at the museum today, M spent about a hour in that section learning about Bonnie Prince Charlie and his family history. Well also near Inverness is Loch Ness, the river Ness flows from there to the sea north of Inverness, and it's a nice walkable town with a big market in the town center so looking forward to that for 3 days, then next Monday we fly across the Irish Sea to Belfast, probably in a prop plane...

May 28 - Edinburgh Scotland

We took the bus to the National Museum of Scotland, and it was very cool... lots of interesting exhibits from all cultures through history.

When we came out it was raining, and our bus stop was closed... sign said, so we went up the hill to Forrest Rd bus stop,

just missed the bus wait 10 minutes for the next one, so i looked at the menu for Katmandu Restaurant there, then walked up a couple doors here is Sandy Bells, the most famous folk music pub in Scotland... we will have to come back tonight for M get her single malt scotch and hear the music...

And we did, there was no place to sit, well there was one empty seat next to 3 people sitting there, so i asked if we could sit there, and found a stool to pull up, they said sure... so for the next 2 hours we had a delightful visit with Robert (of Edinburg), Karen his wf (of England), and Yves (of Brittany, France)...

and we heard the Irish folk music which is a rotating group of players no not for money do they do this... and Yves is a musician of Celtic music so he pulled out his pipe and played along some of the times, he said he was building up his courage to play with the main group tomorrow night... Robert explained how after the war (WW II) Sandy Bells was the place that brought Scottish Folk music back it is world famous as the finest place in all of Scotland for folk music, and of course their extensive scotch and whiskey offerings... and scotch beers tho they said nothing compares to Guinness so we played it safe with those foam topped pints.

Well the scotch was good (i had a pint of guiness and bought a round) so... how could i say no when Robert offered... M enjoyed nursing her dram (35 ml)

for a hour or so with a pitcher of water and 2 glasses of ice water... and the pics and video don't do justice to the atmosphere but it was grand

and it stays light until 10:00 pm up here (gets light about 4:00 am) so right at dusk 10:15 we went out walked down 2 doors and caught the 35 bus back to the apartment. Asked for a recommendation what to see Robert said the National Portrait Gallery which is in a palace so that will be our agenda for tomorrow !