It’s a long way to the Shetland Islands!!!

 

We set sail last evening around 6:30 pm, and will not arrive at our first stop, the Shetland Islands, until tomorrow morning at 6:30am.  It’s a long way to the Shetlands!!!  In fact, they are almost as close to Norway as they are to the rest of Scotland!

So we get a leisurely day at sea, and are lucky to enjoy (again) lovely weather.  

This morning, we sailed along the Northern part of Scotland:  the coast is dotted with little towns, some bucolic, some more industrial.  

There are wind turbines everywhere!  I got a pretty look at the ones in the ocean while working out at the gym, but you can also see them every where on the coast.  

Gives you an idea of the typical weather…. 

Today, it was nice enough for an al fresco lunch by the pool (no, I have not tried the pool yet, but I may have to just because…..).  Although it was indeed very windy on the top deck!

During the day, there were two presentations about Scotland, its history and pre-history. They were interesting and I did learn a lot. (Mostly that prehistory was fascinating and a lot more complex than once thought, and that from 800 till 1900, various kings spend a lot of time killing each others in various gruesome ways….).  And then one by the captain about the history of maritime navigation.  It was also very good, but it’s possible that I’m the only person in the room who understood anything:  while his English is very good, it is very accented (look who is talking….):  there were no “h” at all, all “th” were pronounced “zzzz” and all words that exist in both French an English were pronounced in French (navigation, cadet, calculations, compass….). And all long and short wovels were switched, turning mirror into “my ror” and horizon into “ho ree zon”.  Finally, most sentences were dotted with French connecting words: alors, eh bien, voila……It was very cute and charming and interesting but I’m not sure it made any sense to any non French speaking person…

We sailed along till diner, watching the occasional navy ship go by (this one is from the danish navy),

and even managed to stay up long enough for the singing and dancing show (the host commented that it was nice to have a boat full of Americans, because they showed up on time and the show could start at 9 as planned, which is not true when they have French tourists (this is a French company)…..

Tomorrow , the Shetland islands,

All a-board!

 Today, we boarded our ship, the Champlain, our home-away-from-home for the next 7 days.

But before that, we had one last look at some of Edinburgh’s sites, starting with a tour of the 5 “new” towns, focusing on the Georgian architecture, and the many famous people who lived there.   I don’t remember them all, so I’ll just mention Walter Scott, whose Waverley novels are the only ones famous enough to have a train station named after them (Edinburgh’s main train station), Robert Louis Stephenson, who wrote Jekyll and and Hyde and and anthology of children poems, including “the lamplighter” based on this very lamp post (he was a sickly child and did not have much to amuse himself). 

We admired the architecture of the house of the first minister of Scotland (just across from our hotel- indeed, we saw him step out of there yesterday), and the organized way the new town streets are laid out, particularly in comparison with the “ messy” old town.  Indeed, the striking differences between the two sides of town are said to have influenced the Jekyll and Hyde idea……

We passed the house of Dr. Simpson, whom queen Victoria knighted for introducing chloroform during childbirth, and invented the forceps…..

We then headed for the National museum of Scotland, a large and diverse museum:  it has a huge wing dedicated to Scottish history, which was interesting, a science area that includes the taxidermied Dolly (the first cloned mammal) and, my favorite,

the millennial clock, which is hard to describe and worth googling.  It chimes every hour, so I went twice.

It also has a roof garden with unique views of the city.  

The museum is so broad in its exhibits that for a moment, I thought this sign pointed to technology improvements in toilet designs….  (It did not….)   

We then went back to the old town, to the Grassmarket area, under the cliff of the castle, and had a lovely lunch at a French bistro.

I also stopped at the burial site of Greyfriar Bobby, the most famous dog in Scotland, and the only one with a famous burial site….  After his master died, he spend 14 years at the plot where he was buried, in all weather conditions.    His devotion was rewarded with his own burial site as near as possible, and with a statue at the cemetery and another one on the royal mile  

Finally, we headed out to the botanical garden, which is great, and where I wished we had much more than one hour to spend.  I power walked my way through the gorgeous rhododendrons, the fabulous trees, and the many other flowers (more pictures at the end of the blog).  

Finally, we travelled across the Firth of Forth (yep, that name is confusing…..), getting a good view of the bridges we would soon sail under.

Of course there was the obligatory safety drill, and then our first dinner on board, not pictured, because I was busy eating……

We sailed under the  three bridges of the Firth of forth…… it was cool….

Below are more pictures from the botanical garden.  

Old stones and movies that rely on them….

 

Our tour did not start until 10:00am this morning, giving me time for a stroll through New Town to Dean’s village, by the Water of Leith river.  New town was a planned development in the late 18th century, and has retained much of its Georgian townhouses, that often surround very pretty gardens and parks.  

Sadly, these are all private, and locked, which is too bad, because they look lovely and I would have enjoyed walking through some of them….  The streets are wonderfully quiet at 7:30am on a Sunday morning….  

From there, it is a steep walk down to the river and to Dean’s village….

Dean’s Village used to be an industrial part of town, taking advantage of the river for miling in particular.  It is now a posh and quiet part of town, and has a lovely walk along the river- which goes all the way to the town of Leith, on the harbor where we had dinner last night. I did not have time to go all the way, but enjoyed the lovely path.

Then it was on to our tour, which took us up to the Edinburgh Castle.  It is much more than just a castle, more like a small fortified village, and some parts of it are still in use for housing the guards

(who are very good at standing very still (I believe that nowadays, when attack from the English is unlikely, it is their only duty).

 The building started in the Iron Age, and has grown in bits and pieces. The last building- a monument to those who died in the “great” war, was erected in 1927, but using stones from an old barn, so it fits right in. There is a palace (top picture) which we did not go in (it was too busy),

a dungeon that did not look like fun, 

many canons, and nice stone work.  

Also, pretty views all around. (Above is the hill i climbed yesterday). 

It was a bit too crowded for our taste, but our guide assured us that compared to July or August, it was downright empty, and that the Royal Mile is basically shoulder to shoulder that time of year (definitely wouldn’t like that). 

But we found nice quite pub for lunch, before having a quick look at the cathedral and

at Victoria Street,which J.K Rowling said inspired Daigon alley in Harry Potter.  

They have embraced it and every other store is Harry Potter themed…..

We then drove about 30 minutes out of town to visit Roselyn chapel, a remarkably ornate church dating from the 1380’s.   Every inch of it is carved, and every carving is different.   It had been in disrepair for many centuries, was poorly restored in the 1950th (they coated all the carving with some kind od “protective” paint, loosing a lot of the orignal colors.) The government did not want to invest in fixing it because it was too out of town to attract many visitors… And then a miracle happened in the form of Dan Brown, Tom Hanks, and the film version of “the Da Vinci code”.  Important scenes were filmed in the crypt, bringing many more visitors and money for repairs.  

Anyway, I could post a million pictures, but here is just a taste: one of the many intricate towers, even more intricate inside pillar, mother protecting child from demon, 

Gargoyle that looks like a lion, carving of a camel, “little green men “ (there are supposedly one hundred of them intertwined in the other intricate carvings). I did not capture pictures of the carving of corn and other plants that did not exist in Scotland in 1380 and have led to many interesting, and I guess plausible , stories of the Scots making it to North America a full century before Christoper Columbus.

 

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We went back to Rose street for dinner and had very excellent local mussels.  

Tomorrow, we board our ship and start our cruise- after a couple more stops around Edinburgh