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The Great Adventure 2017 Part Four

I am pretty far behind in documenting the parts of our journey, so this entry, while being about our stay in Edinburgh from Sept. 23-27, is being written Oct. 4. And today is 9 months post surgery and the report is that we're all doing well. Good news!

So, back to the trip. We got off the train at Waverly Station in Edinburgh and took a cab to our guest house, which was situated about a mile from the city center. We went for a walk and ended up at the National Museum of Scotland. This was one of our favorite places so far. It's immense in size and has all manner of exhibits. Even without paying to see the main historical exhibit on Bonnie Prince Charlie, we filled a couple of hours wandering around and looking at everything from technology, medical equipment development, transportation (there are small airplanes and a full size locomotive in there) and finally natural history which included models of dinosaur skeletons. A fascinating place that you could easily spend a day in. 





We walked some more and then went to a whiskey pub recommended by our B&B host. We had our first fish and chips and Pat tried a whiskey. 

Here's Pat in front of St. Patrick's


The next day we decided to walk up to Arthur's Seat, which is the main peak of the group of hills which form most of Holyrood Park. It looked pretty straightforward when Rick Steves did it for the video! We found the base of it easily but had trouble identifying the path to the top. The signage is fairly nonexistant. Anyway, we walked up a ways and got some beautiful views, as this was still in the pleasant weather portion of the trip. 




Later that day we took a train to Falkirk, as it was a place Pat had decided would be interesting, and it was. There is a rotating boat lift that connects the Forth and Clyde Canal with the Union Canal. It is the only rotating boat lift in the world and raises boats 79 feet, replacing a series of 11 locks that were previously needed to connect the two waterways. It's out in a little town and there's a water park and boat rides. On a cool and rainy day, there wasn't a lot going on, but we got to see it work before we had to leave. I have a cool lime-lapse video of it going around halfway but it won't load on my iPad. It's on my Instagram post (@lboatsman). 


 Then we went to see the Kelpies, the largest equine sculptures in the world, standing at one hundred feet tall. They are located quite near the Falkirk Wheel, in Helix park. We stopped by on the way back to the train station and took some quick photos. They are magnificent. 




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