May 22 Edinburgh

There was quite a bit of rain during the night but it had stopped by the morning so we got organised to head into Edinburgh. We had booked Edinburgh Castle tickets for 1 pm tomorrow so thought we would do a walking tour that I had found online. I summoned up an Uber which surprisingly was there in 3 minutes so we were off.
Our camp is 6 or 7 kilometres out from the centre of Edinburgh and we arrived there to find that it was quite foggy. We started our tour at the Balmoral Hotel which is a grand old hotel built originally for the railway. I read that the clock in the tower is set 2 minutes fast to encourage rail users to get to the station early. The only day of the year that it is on time is 31 December for obvious reasons. We then started up the hill where you could just see the castle from time to time through the fog. At the University there were lots of police motorbikes and black Range Rovers lined up. We continued our way up the hill to the Royal Mile and amused ourselves for another hour or 2 trying to find the things on the walking tour. At one point we were held up at an intersection for about 20 minutes until Prince Edward was whisked through accompanied by all the police motorbikes we had seen earlier. It was then time for a coffee so we popped into a very nice old hotel to take on caffeine for a change from the usual beer.
By the time we emerged from the pub it was starting to rain so we popped around the corner for a look at the castle and stumbled upon a shop called The Scotch Whisky Experience. I suggested that we seek refuge from the elements there. We booked a tour for half an hour later and wandered around the shop where we made a few purchases. The tour was brilliant. It was a very high quality audio visual display over several rooms with a guide showing and explaining the process to make Whisky. We finished with a tasting in an amazing room surrounded by one person's private collection of over 3,800 whiskies. Apparently the secret to getting such a large collection is not to open them. No fun in that.
By the time we came out it was after 2 pm so, as has become a bit of a habit lately, we headed to a restaurant for a very nice lunch. By then the rain had really set in and so after lunch we made our way back to the Balmoral and were lucky enough to grab an old London taxi and make our way back to the camp to dry out.En savoir plus