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After a quick look in St James Mall, we went across to the castle via Market St/The Mound and Royal Mile.
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| Walking across Waverley Bridge from Princes Street to Old Town. | To the East, North Bridge (A7) towers above the train station. | The Bank of Scotland Museum on the Mound | Looking past the train station and the railway tracks to Princes Street the Scott Monument and the Scottish National Gallery. | |
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| A closer look at the Scottish National Gallery from the Southern side. | The Mound. | The Free Church of Scotland. | St. Giles Cathedral from the corner of Bank Street / High Street. | Walking West along the Royal Mile towards the castle. |
What a great view from Edinburgh Castle! (Alternative Wikipedia link.) We took a tour guide around to the upper ward. When that finished we looked around, pausing for a cake break at the Queen Anne restaurant. It was very busy around the grounds. We skipped the crown jewels for the moment. Then we went down to the middle ward via the prisoners of war exhibition. Then we parked ourselves by the One o'Clock Gun and waited 35 minutes for it to fire. Good job too as we got a great vantage point and soon afterwards we were surrounded by a large crowd. After the gun we went back to the crown jewels room while it was quieter (no pictures were allowed in there or inside the war memorial alas). Then after visiting the west panorama point we exited the castle
This link and this link came in useful when identifying parts of the castle, and provide a nice plan of the castle.
A clip of the One o'Clock Gun firing is uploaded to You Tube. Click here to view the video.
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| The Esplanade at the Eastern entrance to the castle. The grandstand from the Edinburgh Festival still being dismantled. The Gatehouse dominates ahead. | Looking Southeastwards towards Holyrood Park and Arthur's Seat. | Looking West back to the Royal Mile. | Preparing to queue at the ticket booth by the Gatehouse. | ||
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| The Half Moon Battery towers above the Lower Ward and Gatehouse. | The way to the Gatehouse. | Renée in the ticket queue. | Looking North from the Esplanade across Princes Street Gardens to New Town. | Walking along the Lower Ward. | Underneath Argyle Tower. Renée under the portcullis. |
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| The Argyle Battery on the middle ward. This is where we picked up a tour of the castle. | Looking Northeast into the Firth of Forth, where the island of Inchkeith is. | Long range shot of the Forth Bridges to the Northwest. | Argyle Battery panorama looking North. |
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| A 360 degree panorama taken by the Argyle Battery. West is roughly centre. | Looking across the Argyle Battery towards a Café and the One o'Clock Gun. | Looking up at the Upper Ward, with the Argyle Tower to the left and the Lang Stairs in between. |
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| The One o'Clock Gun. | Looking uphill round the West side towards the New Bararcks and Governer's House, and Foog's Gate round the corner. | The café. | The water tank on the Upper Ward. | Foog's Gate panorama. This and the Lang's Staircase are the two main ways to get to the upper ward. |
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| A great view downhill to the North from near Foog's Gate. | The castle tour guide. | A closer view of Foog's Gate. | The Barracks and the Governer's House. | Walking through Foog's Gate into the Upper Ward. | |
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| The Scottish National War Memorial building. | A panorama around the upper ward, with the Water Tank and St. Margeret's Chapel featuring. | A shop next to the Water Tank. | St. Margeret's Chapel. | |
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| Another view of the Scottish National War Memorial building from near the Foreward Battery. | The Half Moon Battery. | The Palace. | The side of the Scottish National War Memorial building. | The Fore Well. |
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| The Palace Tower and a crest on the wall of the Great Hall from Crown Square. | Looking North over the Argyle Battery from the view point near St. Margeret's Chapel. | Cannon balls used by Mons Meg. | A better Noth facing panorama from by Mons Meg. | |
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| The Mons Meg cannon. | Looking North over Lang's Staircase. | Looking over the Esplanade to Holyrood Park / Arthur's Seat from the top of Lang's Staircase. | Lang's Staircase from above. | Inside the remains of David's Tower. | |
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| The Great Hall. | ||||
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| The Prisoners of War Exhibition. | Looking Northeast from near the One o'Clock Gun, including a closeup of Carlton Hill. | The One o'Clock Gun ready to be fired. 12:30pm on the clock. | Looking down at the Scott Monument while we wait for the gun to fire. | ||
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| The piper playing as we get close to 1pm. | The One o'Clock Gun being loaded and fired. | |||
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| A 360 degree panorama taken in the centre of Crown Square. South is just left of centre. Mind the hand preventing the sun from overexposing the sunward shots over the Great Hall. The four main buildings from left to right are the Scottish National War Memorial, the Palace, the Great Hall and the Queen Anne Building where we stopped for tea in a café there. | The Scottish National War Memorial from Crown Square. | The West Panorama view point, |
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| 180 degree panorama looking West from the West Panorama view point. | Looking Southwards towards a dry ski slope at the Midlothian Snowsports Centre in the distance. |
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| More views of the Western and Northwestern side of Edinburgh from the West Panorama view point. | Looking back across the West Panotrama courtyard. | ||
After exiting the castle we started heading to the National Museum of Scotland. En route we stopped at a Pizza Express by the National Library of Scotland for lunch. After lunch we carried on down the hill to the museum.
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| Walking back Eastwards along the Royal Mile. | A piper playing on the side of the street. | Continuing along the Royal Mile. | Victoria Street from George IV Bridge. | Lunch stop. Pizza Express outside the National Library of Scotland. | Walking past Augstine United Church on the way to the museum. | |
The new part of the museum has nice modern architecture. There were some interesting and varied exhibitions inside and a nice roof terrace on top with a view back to the castle and also to Arthur's Seat. We spent a good hour or so inside.
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| The National Museum of Scotland. | Jackie Stewart's F1 racing car from the early 70's. | A panorama showing the architecture in the new part of the museum. | Another Stewart Grand Prix car from the mid 80's. | Dolly the Sheep! |
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| Renée the astronaut! | The roof terrace. With views of Holyrood Park / Arthur's Seat, Edinburgh Castle and the St. Giles tower prominent in the skyline. | ||||
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| The main atrium in the old part of the museum. | Natural rock crystals. | Renée chilling out in the café. | A 4 seater tandem bike. | The Natural World exhibition. | |
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| A huge geode from the Restless Earth exhibition. | |
Afterwards we wandered back towards the BnB, taking a good look around St. Giles Cathedral en route. We got back about 4pm where we had a well earned rest with tea and biscuits.
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| St. Giles Cathedral. | Lothian & Borders Police opposite Parliament Square. | Another view of St. Giles Cathedral. | Dropping down through an alley way to Cockburn Street. | ||
At 4:50pm we set off for St. James Mall again to look around a bit more before collecting the car from the NCP car park there. We decided to go for a short drive. We stopped by the botanic garden to find it was closing but unlike the expensive Kew Gardens in London, it has free admission. So a possibility for tomorrow. We then carried on to the A903 Granton Road which took us to the Forth River edge and then along to Leith Docks where the HMY Britannia is. To get a closer look we parked in the Ocean Terminal shopping centre. However the tour had closed at 4:30pm. It was more like 6:30pm so we missed the boat there (excuse the pun!). We got some views and looked at the gift shop though.
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| Granton Harbour panorama from Granton Road. | The West Breakwater of Leith Docks. | Another view of Inchkeith Island. | The HMY Britannia at Leith Docks. | |
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| The HMY Britannia at Leith Docks with the buildings on the West Breakwater in the background. The 2nd panorama is 180 degrees. | From Leith Docks a better long range view of the Forth Rail Bridge is afforded. | Edinburgh sunset. | |
I was starting to feel really tired by now so we soon headed back to the BnB where I found a decent parking space for the night. I then walked to Sainsburys for some snacks which I ate back in the BnB as we retired for the night.
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