We arrived in South Queensferry Scotland this morning at around 7:30 AM local time. This is a port where we can’t get to a dock and have to take small boats (tenders) from the ship to the shore. We took a few pictures as we pulled in near the town.
Conrad spotted a seal swimming alongside the ship.
There were a number of beautiful buildings along the shore that looked like old churches or castles.
Once we boarded the tender we were able to get a few good pictures of our boat in the harbor as well as the Forth Bridges, the red bridge is the rail bridge, there is also a rather non-descript bridge that carries car traffic, and then a new beautiful white bridge that is not yet open that will be the new bridge for car traffic. Here are some pictures as we tendered to shore.
There were also homes along the shoreline that we could see as we came into the town.
When we got off the ship, we were greeted by some bagpipes on shore. Some of the people on the ship were going up in between the bag pipers and posing for pictures so close to them that it seemed hard for them to play. We waited for everyone to leave and got this picture.
After we walked up into town we had about an hour and a half before we needed to meet the bus for our excursion so we walked into South Queensferry to see what the town was like. As in most towns in Europe the streets and narrow and lined with shops. It was very nice and everyone was very friendly.
We decided to stop in a little shop called Once Upon a Time which served coffee, and ice cream and candy and had Willy Wonka wall paper. We chatted with some of the local folks in the shop as we had coffee, and scones and toffee bread. It was a really nice little shop.
The ladies in the shop told us to walk up the street a bit to see a nice quaint church up the road which we did, but it was closed.
After that we walked back through town to meet our tour to Edinburg and to tour the castle. Our impression of Edinburgh was that it was very crowded and hectic. We did some sighseeing from the bus but mostly sat in traffic until we got to the castle. Once there, we toured the castle gounds but the best thing about the castle was the views that it gave of the city from up on top of the castle grounds.
View from outside of the castle
One of the building inside of the castle where there is a lot of wood work on the walls and the ceiling, but there are no nails used in any of it.
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View looking down at Edinburgh
The castle had a large grandstand in place so that people could watch a huge Military drill and celebration called the Military Tatoo
Looking down at Edinburgh from the castle
Looking down at Edinburgh from the castle
This is a canon inside the castle walls that is fired once per day at 1:00 PM
A Memorial to Sir Walter Scott in Edinburgh
Looking down at Edinburgh from the castle
We finally headed back to the ship through the older part of Edinburgh, but again it was mostly just a huge traffic jam like in any other city at rush hour. When we got back to the ship we had missed our normak dinner seating but were seated in another section with a very nice dinner crew and our head waiter Yanto talked Eagles football with Conrad all night. He had actually been on a HAL ship in Jacksonville that served as a hotel in 2005 when the Eagles were last in the Super Bowl and he was pretty knowledgeable about the team.
Just before bed we were treated to the Forth Rail Bridge lit up against the night sky, it was very pretty
