Wrapping Up and Heading Home

Yesterday was our final day in Scotland.

Cutting through Waverly Train Station, we stopped by the Scott Memorial. Glad we climbed to the top last visit as it was closed for maintenance.

I heard Paddington Bear was in New Town so off we went to St. Andrews Park for a quick visit. Across the street is the Royal Bank of Scotland. It sounds like a weird place to go but it's quite stunning inside!

Our hike today was up Calton Hill to see the city views. More of those hills and stairs were involved including 130 steps on Jacob's Ladder!! 😂

After all that, we took a break at Tolbooth Tavern for a pint and lunch. This is Richard's favorite building (and not just because of the tavern)! We stayed down this close when we were here in 2017 with the boys.

After "refueling", we started our Royal Mile trek with stops at Cannongate Kirk and Dunbar Close Gardens. The Kirk is the one the Queen attended when she was in Edinburgh. The graveyard here is where AdM Smith, father of economics is "deposited" according to his tombstone. The Scottish writer, Robert Ferguson is also buried here.

The gardens are next door. These are open to the public and a lovely little escape spot from the crazy that is The Royal Mile. It was unreal how quiet and peaceful it was in spite of being adjacent to such a busy street.

On our previous visit, we walked through Bakehouse Close - before it was famous - on our way out of Edinburgh for Richard and Luke to play golf. Now, it is a popular stop for Outlander fans as the location of Jamie's print shop.

Back out on "The Mile", we continued up to Tron Kirk Market. This is a former church that is now used by local artists as a market place. Picked us up some prints of the city.

Our last "big" stop was to go inside St. Giles Cathedral. It was founded in 1124 as Roman Catholic, but became Protestant during the Refermation in the 16th century. This was considered the home church of John Knox and the "mother church" of Presbyterianism.

Our visit was actually quite chaotic. Between the tourists, the orchestra practicing and the wedding rehearsal it was a bit hard to take in all there was to see. It is a beautiful building and I'm glad we did get a look inside.

We had a slightly shorter day and an early-ish dinner since we had to get up at 2:30 AM to head home. We had the rental to return and get to the airport for a 6 AM flight. Wow! The airport was crazy nuts at 4.30 AM!!

A wonderful trip!! Scotland is a "must see" on your travel bucket list! 💙🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿Baca lagi