Scotland - Day 4

Day 21 - Scotland - Day 4 (September 19)

Another nice morning outside but cold enough for jeans, a long sleeve shirt and sweater. After breakfast we gathered up cameras, umbrellas and guidebook and headed for the Alexandria train station, a short walk from our lodgings.

The train pulled into the station, powered by overhead electric wires and we got on and found seats for the 45 minute ride into Glasgow. The train is comfortable and quite fast though it makes about ten stops before we arrive at the Queen Street Station in Glasgow. Since we are transferring to another train, we headed upstairs for the train to Edinburgh. After asking one of the station guards where to go we found our platform and boarded the train. This one is larger and more substantial being a diesel-electric.

Once aboard our train left the station for the 45 minute run to Edinburgh. Well, it would have been a 45 minute ride if we hadn’t been shunted aside for over twenty minutes while several trains passed us. Eventually we regained our tracks and completed our run into Edinburgh. We got off the train and found our way outside up to one of the main roads paralleling the station and oriented ourselves to the map.

Once we figured out where we were, we headed off for Edinburgh Castle http://www.edinburghcastle.biz/ which is situated on the peak of a hill overlooking the town of Edinburgh, of course… don’t all castles sit on top of hills? After a steady half mile walk and climb we reached the gates of the castle, along with several hundred other visitors. After passing through the gates and paying our entrance fee we took a self guided tour of the castle and grounds. Unlike the castle at Dumbarton, this one was almost complete with much restoration work still in progress, leaving several sections of the castle off limits. Other than the crowds we enjoyed our visit.

The walk out of the castle back toward town led us directly onto a street called “The Royal Mile” http://www.aboutscotland.co.uk/edin/royal.html a pedestrian only shopping district in the heart of Edinburg. We were surprised because we had heard that the shops on both sides of the street were supposed to be fairly exclusive but it turned out that most of them were souvenir shops with much the same goods in every one. Since we were to be home by 5:00 PM we weren’t able to do as much as we wanted, such as climbing to the top of Colton Hill http://planetadventure.blogspot.com/2006/11/culloden-batle-field-culloden.html to see all the monuments. We continued our return walk to the train station, found our platform and boarded just in time.

The return trip also had a lay by, but only for about five minutes. We made it into Glasgow, walked down to the lower station to find our train. Once again, the train left just after we boarded. The return trip to Alexandria was pleasant and we arrived about 4:30 PM for the five minute walk back to our lodging. Our plan was to visit with family for the evening so we called Aunt Elsa and arranged to be there about 6:00 PM. We grabbed a quick dinner at a café down the street then drove over to Elsa’s.

My cousin Peter and his wife Hazel came over with bottle of wine which was quickly shared round. We had a very nice visit but eventually had to leave to go home plan our next few days and pack. We finally dropped into bed around 11:00 PM, tired but happy to have been able to meet members of my family I had never met before.

Tosee our photos:

http://picasaweb.google.com/mjdolanski