Day 4: Haggis, Museums, Bobby Dog & Good-bye

Scottish Breakfast:  Bacon under the knife, tomato, egg, sausage, a potato scone (their term for what's more like naan or pita) and haggis is the small brown/gray meatball left of the fork!

This morning we started off with one thing on the Scottish bucket list—trying haggis! Anyone who knows what that is has an immediate averse reaction to it, and quite a few people told us they’d never eat ground up organ meat wrapped in sheeps’ stomach! But nowadays, the filling is almost always wrapped in normal sausage casing, and the meat mixture itself is like a finely ground, spiced hash. We actually quite liked it!

The rest of a full Scottish breakfast—which every B&B and hotel offers—includes your choices from: bacon (more like ham—not “streaky bacon like we eat in the US), sausage, beans, tomatoes (grilled & warm), mushrooms, black pudding, toast (white, dark or a mix), eggs (poached, scrambled, or fried) and porridge (oatmeal). You can order any or all of the items, and it’s definitely energy producing when you’re heading out to walk all day!

The Filling Station

After breakfast we headed out to the Royal Mile again to locate “The Filling Station” – a pub/restaurant where son-in-law Ben worked years ago when he spent time living in Edinburgh. Once we knew where to look, it was easy to find, and we put it on the agenda as our lunch stop for later.

We wandered through several tourist shops and down a few side streets until we found ourselves at the Scottish National Museum. Since every museum in Scotland has free admission, we popped in and looked at several different displays—the animals of the world section and the science and technology exhibits. As with any great museum, we could have spent many hours instead of just one!

The great hall at the National Museum of Scotland

Three floors of the animals and nature section. So cool!

Outside again, across from the museum, we found a small statue of a little Skye terrier named

Greyfriar's Bobby

Lucky nose rub for me!

Greyfriar’s Bobby. His story is bittersweet and Disney even made a movie of it. Bobby’s master (a doctor) died, and the dog followed his coffin to the graveyard. For fourteen years he kept watch over it—adopted by the townspeople and sleeping with temporary caretakers. People now stand in line to pat Bobby’s nose—making it shiny. It’s as if now everyone is keeping watch over the faithful dog!

Back on the Royal Mile we had reservations for one more touristy interaction—a tour called “The Real Mary King’s Close.” In the very early days of Edinburgh, people lived in narrow lanes off of High Street called closes. Mary King was a very rare woman of high enough stature to have a close named for her. Over time, more and more buildings were built around and over the closes, until there was a hierarchy with the very poor living at the bottom levels and the wealthier in the pleasant middle floors, and poor again at the top. Touring the lower level housing at this excavated site was both entertaining and sobering. It wasn’t a very pleasant way to live—with no indoor plumbing or heating or much space. It was a super educational tour.

The entrance to The Real Mary King's close

Mary King's Close--the actual original street.

Cool thing in the UK--all credit card transactions done at the table!

Jan gets to pet Bobby's nose too.

Chocolate souffle--divided by two. Yum!

We finished the tour and then ate chicken fajitas for lunch at The Filling Station, where we  discovered a glitch in my phone camera that meant I’d lost all the pictures from that morning. Luckily we were doubling up on most things—Jan with his Nikon and me with my Samsung—but I’d lost his photo with Bobby, so we zipped back to the statue, retook the picture and then went to a funky little bohemian-like restaurant called Lovecrumbs for dessert. A chocolate soufflé was the perfect thing to make up for technological issues.

By this time our last day in Edinburgh had come to a close. We hopped into one last shop and then collected our suitcases from Kuan at Amar Agua. Smart now, we grabbed a bus to the train station and caught our train for Glasgow. It was sad to say goodbye to Scotland’s capital—we know it’ll be a long time until we return. I wish we’d had more time!

A Side Blog: The "Fringe" of Edinburgh

One of the strangest and still truly fun things about our timing for this trip was the fact that for three weeks in August Edinburgh hosts an international Arts Festival. So many wonderful plays, music performances, and artists come to participate. But in addition, the city also plays host to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. While you have to plan your visits to more classic performances, Fringe artists are loud and present everywhere you go! The shoulder-to-shoulder crowds on the Royal Mile rival any I've ever been in (including the Minnesota State Fair!) and the hawkers and street performers are wild, wonderful, and entertaining. They lie "dead" in the street, wear outlandish costumes, and hand out postcards inviting you to come to their performances. Seriously, where else could you go to a musical about Typhoid Mary? I thought you'd enjoy some of the pictures showing the Fringe side of Edinburgh in August!

Typhoid is funny--anyone?

A Blue Meanie? We have NO idea--lol.

Jan says the whole kilt-love is a girl thing. It's true--I thought even this comic and his balloons was cute.

An Edinburgh trash bin. Pretty to the point.

These performers were advertising their slow show. They were walking in total slow motion.

Deluxe balloon animals.

Hahaha.

"Brexit The Musical."

Pick your show! Naked magicians? If I'd had time...

Austen-tatious!

 I think this lady was one of my favorites. If you put a coin in her box, out came her whistle and up went her skirt. She actually showed her underpanties--but the camera, believe it or not, wasn't ready!!

Day 3: Arthur's Seat, The Castle, and a Funny Pub Tour

 
Day three was our first full day in Edinburgh, and what a spectacular day we had. After a breakfast of pancakes and maple syrup we had to buy some change for the bus at a nearby tiny grocery store. Then we climbed on the #33 double-decker bus for downtown Edinburgh. Our first sight was the impressive and imposing Scott monument. Sir Walter Scott is beloved here (along with Robert Burns & Robert Louis Stevenson--and all thepoets and novelists of Scotland!) We walked half of the Royal Mile--aka High Street, which runs from Edinburgh Castle to Holyrood Park and Palace (the Queen's home in Scotland).

Once in the 600+-acre park, we took the steepest of several paths to the top of Arthur's Seat--a hill in the very middle of the city. There we got the most beautiful bird's-eye view of Scotland's capital. At 822 feet, the summit was not that hard to reach, but it gave us a work-out. I was very proud of Jan, who is not fond of heights, for climbing to the highest point. On the way back down we took a short side-trip to the ruins of St. Anthony's chapel. Very impressive and, actually, quite beautiful.

 

 

We headed back to the Royal Mile via Holyrood (pronounced Holly-rood) and took pictures of the

Queen’s palace. A lovely gentleman who worked at the palace gift shop (oh, yes, there is one!) told us how everything shuts down when the Queen visits once a year—but they love that she comes.

We took another bus to the middle of High Street and found a wonderful Scottish pub called The Royal MacGregor.  We both had fish and chips, which are nothing like what you get in the U.S. Here they are giant pieces of crispy-fried haddock with thick chips (French fries) and our favorite mushy peas (just what they sound like!)

Jan also had a flight of whisky—his first Scotch in Scotland.And I had cider--my favorite alcoholic drink. Only mine was Swedish-- well done me!

 One of the crazy things that goes on in Edinburgh in August is the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. I’ll do a whole post on this but for now, know that the crowds are State Fair sized!

This lovely Fringe Festival lady was so demur--until you dropped a coin in her bucket. This was for Jan :-)

 We wove through the shoulder-to-shoulder walls of people to Edinburgh Castle, where we purchased tickets and got to take a tour with Janice—a very fun and knowledgeable guide. The castle is really a fortress that was used far more for military housing than as a royal residency. It was besieged many times and was the site of a dinner party surprise murder that they say was the inspiration for the Red Wedding massacre scene in Game of Thrones. The whole fortress is amazing.

Our tour guide Janice.

McBrain (aka Hazel) doing Mr. Hyde from Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde,

Our final tourist activity of Tuesday was joining up with a Literary Pub Tour at a pub called The Beehive. Two wonderful actors (Paul and Hazel) played “Klart and McBrain” – a couple of literary know-it-alls who who argued from pub to pub about what truly influenced Scotland’s beloved poets:  was it the down and dirty life of the everyman in pubs and lower society? Or was it the wealthy high society that loved and supported them?

Klart (Paul) trying to prove it was the ladies who inspired Robert Burns.

 There was no answer except that it was mix of both, and we had a truly entertaining and intellectual night!

We capped off the day by eating at Milne’s bar—our last stop of the pub tour. Jan had gammon steak (cured but unsmoked pork) and I had Scottish sausage. Without a doubt, in this case I won! Gammon is way funnier tasting than haggis! Tired but impressed, we headed for Amar Agua ready for sleep—and Day 4 tomorrow!

Days 1 and 2: Edinburgh via Car, Plane, Plane, Taxi, Train, and Schlepp!

What a magical introduction to Scotland we’ve had! Our only complaint is that there simply isn’t enough time to fit in everything that would be fun to do. But then again, what traveler doesn’t have that complaint? Two days in Edinburgh didn’t even scratch the surface of activities on our wish list of sights. On the other hand, we had two phenomenal weather days with blue skies, puffy white clouds, and T-shirt temps. We’ve been told this was very lucky since it had rained at least a little while every day for the past month. Thank the Lord for many blessings!

Evie with our suitcases and backpacks!

We left home at 7:00 p.m. Sunday, chauffeured by Adam and sweet Evelyn Grace, and with a stop at Jen, Ben and Riley’s house for bon voyage hugs. We had no troubles until the traffic jam at the airport where it took 10 minutes to go a quarter mile. On the other hand, by a stroke of luck we had TSA pre-check tix, so we buzzed through security without even having to remove shoes. (Big smiley face!)

Our Minneapolis to Amsterdam plane.

We are so used to domestic flights where nobody feeds you on a plane anymore, that it didn’t dawn on us we’d have two meals on our flight to Amsterdam! So, we ate at a fairly nice airport seafood place. Surprise! We had lasagna and chicken Kiev on the plane. A lesson in how to feel unhealthy before you even get to your destination.

Following a medical emergency (concerning an elderly lady who wasn’t breathing but ended up all right), watching The Zookeeper’s Wife on the seat back screen, getting an hour or two’s

worth of sleep and then eating again for breakfast, we landed in Amsterdam.

Leaving Minneapolis at 10 p.m.

The coast of Greenland.

The coast of the Netherlands.

Interesting juxtaposition: windmills next to oil storage.

Schiphol airport is huge and crazily fun. Check out the Man-in-the-Clock clock we watched at one of the shopping and eating plazas!

The man fooled us--he isn't truly there. But every single minute he erases the minute hand and repaints it one tick down.

I loved these sumo guys--but this guard took one look at me posing with them and photo-bombed us.

KLM to Glasgow!

Tulip stores and duty-free shops abound. Fun sculptures and
friendly guards are everywhere!  After a two-hour layover we boarded a plane once more and arrived in Glasgow just over an hour later. It almost seemed too easy for getting 5000 miles from home and we didn't even feel too jetlagged! Only the bags under my eyes showed I was sleep deprived.

First view of Glasgow & the River Clyde

We caught a cab with “Jim” who gave us a lovely tour of Glasgow and even drove us past the hotel we’ll be staying in come Wednesday. He told us to hit the pedestrian shopping area, George Square, Kelvingrove Park and a pub called “Pot Still.” But with his (wonderful) accent we heard that as “Pot Stau” and it took us a long time to look it up on the web!

The train trip from Glasgow to Edinburgh takes 55 minutes and we did snooze away a few minutes of jet lag. Still we were “refreshed” enough to think we could walk to our B&B, which turned out to be approximately 1.7 miles from the train station. It’s a testament to the accepting nature of the Scots that nobody looked twice at two semi-bedraggled foreigners dragging their suitcases along Dalkeith Street and through throngs of people attending the August Edinburgh Fringe Festival. (Way more on that in a later post!) We probably looked like some of the wacky festival performers!

Amar Agua B&B

We arrived at Amar Agua B&B not knowing exactly what to expect. 

We were thrilled to find an almost luxurious home! 

Kuan was our host and took literally twenty minutes to give us a full orientation to the B&B and to Edinburgh. We learned bus routes, places to exchange money, times to hit the sights, and all kinds of fun facts. The best advice was for a dinner venue. He sent us to The Salisbury Arms—and we didn’t regret it for a second. The atmosphere was classy but homey and the food was different but delicious. After my dinner of a butternut squash/beetroot tart and Jan’s of a prawn/chorizo sausage linguini—we were sold on Scotland’s ability to feed its guests! 

The Salisbury Arms. Above--prawn linguini and squash/beet tart!

Finally, after a very long trip using four modes of transportation, including our own feet (warming up for the coming hike), we got to sleep in our lovely room beneath our four poster canopy, under a snuggly down comforter. Tomorrow we truly start the vacation! It was an amazing welcome to Scotland—we can’t believe we’re here!