The Palace

The abbey ruins outside Holyroodehouse Palace
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For our first full day in Scotland, Chantal and I had some alone time. We left the children at the house with their grandparents and took a train into Edinburgh. What an incredible city! Most of the main downtown core has an old world feel, something that cannot be said about anything that I have experienced in a North American city.

We walked around the main section for a bit and Chantal ducked into a Starbuck’s just on the edge of the main drag that was closed off to car traffic. This section was packed with pedestrians, thespians and oddballs. There were people dressed as monkeys, mimes, and royalty. Almost all of them begging you to attend this show or that as part of the Fringe Festival. At one point, Chantal and I became separated when I zigged and she zagged. There were 10 frantic minutes of searching before I finally spotted her. Needless to say, we held hands from then on.

We got separated amidst the mayhem.

The view from the forecourt of the Palace
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We decided to take a bus tour of the area to get a lay of the land. It turned out to be a good call when the Scottish weather came. Nobody sat in the open portion of bus. The trip took an hour or so thanks in part to the horrible traffic gridlock in the downtown core.

We then decided to visit the Palace of Holyroode, home to the British royalty in Scotland. It was quite something to see. We were allowed to take an audio tour of about one floor of the three-story building. Most of it was furnished the way that Mary Queen of Scots and her ancestors would have left it. There were a couple of rooms that have been used by Queen Elizabeth for state functions. One of the stranger artifacts in the place was a plaster cast of the skull of Robert the Bruce.

Just outside the walls of the palace, we walked through the ruins of Holyroode Abbey. They were quite spectacular. We then took a brief tour of the Queen’s Gallery, which was showcasing “conversation pieces.” These were basically paintings of staged family portraits that the royal family has collected through the years. Some of them were quite stunning and lifelike. I remember one with a bunch of dogs on it that looked almost like a photograph, because of the rich details.

Once we left the Palace area, we walked past the Scottish Parliament, a unique architectural structure to say the least, and up the Royal Mile. We hopped the train back to the house and were there in time for a swim and dinner. Plans have been made for the days to come, but as I sit here writing, we’re already behind schedule. Apparently, my brother talks a good game…