Scotland

We are now in Edinburgh, but first I have to mention last night. We went to dinner at the Italian restaurant down the road from where we were staying, along the waterfront. It had been a fine afternoon and the reports remained fine so we set off, no umbrellas, full of optimism. When we got to the waterfront we found it was blowing an amazing gale off the North Sea, plus it was high tide and the water was splashing up against the seawall and right across the road - like walking round to Shelly Beach times 10!! So we got battered by wind and spray getting there, but had a great meal....then going home, the wind had dropped a little, but suddenly out of the blue it rained...only lasted a short while, had stopped by the time we arrived back, but what fickle weather.

Anyway, this morning there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and it was sunny, which was great for us wheeling our bags to the metro stop (now responsible for our own bags) to get to central station to catch the train to Edinburgh. All worked perfectly, we had good coffee at the station while we waited. The train was late but didn’t matter at all to us having no deadline or connection, and we got to Edinburgh about 1.30.

John and Carole had been at the hotel when they arrived from Seattle, so they knew the drill and we got a tram on Princes street which took us to our Novotel (not an Ibis this time!) and the tram continues from this stop on to the airport. Extremely handy for tomorrow when we fly to Bergen...this was the plan, but it has worked perfectly. Quite a fancy hotel - we even have bathrobes and a huge room!

So after checking in, we all set off back to the city in the tram and wandered round. A lovely sunny day here too, and we always love Edinburgh...beautiful city. Found a restaurant where we all met for dinner, and had the most perfect farewell to the UK dinner. We had a Ramon Bilbao Rioja wine (Paul note) and I had scallops and mussels...so I was in heaven. It was the sort of old fashioned restaurant when you could talk, a live pianist playing old favourites in the background, excellent food - just right.

Now we are back at the hotel having our complimentary drink ( being such faithful Accor patrons) watching a soccer match on TV between Liverpool and Salzburg....actually they are watching and I am writing this...Read more