Edinburgh And The Castle

 After a nice sunny day (for the most part) at sea, we arrived in Edinburgh. The morning was very nice, sunny and warmish with a bit of a good breeze. By the time the afternoon came however, the skies began to cloud and of course we began to wonder what our excursion to the Edinburgh Castle would hold.

The drive through the city allowed us the opportunity to see some amazing architecture that was reminiscent of older times and interspersed with obviouly more modern reflections. Lots of memorials or monuments were scattered throughout as homage to many of the literary giants that Scotland has produced.

Our bus finally came to a stop in front of the Elephant House, a bright red building that is a cafe that offers Butter Scotch Beer. Sound a bit familiar? If you have read the Harry Potter books, this is where much of the story was written. JK Rowling spent her time at the cafe, a single mom trying to make a go of it by writing the stories that now have made her famous and very wealthy.

We left the bus and had not got too far down the castle mile walk toward the castle when it began to rain. Not too badly and one section of the walk was undercover where there was construction--very narrow passageway to navigate that barely allowed for two people to pass. 

However once we neared the castle it began to rain hard and then it began to pour, buckets of rain. We (a group of 40) tried to take shelter under some scaffolding that was erected near the castle entrance while our guide got our tickets but a guard insisted we move out of the way since we were slowing the pedestrian traffic moving through.

We moved out into the open, huddled together under umbrellas and rain gear that was not doing much good at this point. Our guide appeared a few minutes later, looking quite drenched but trying to be cheerful and handed us our tickets, set the time for reassembly near by and we were on our way.

I kept telling Bob that it was a castle. We would probably be inside. Was I wrong.

Most of the castle is an open area. The only places you could enter were a couple of museums dedicated to several different groups of soldiers and calvary throughout Scottish history. We went through them mostly to get out of the rain.

When the rain began to lessen, we got in a line for another building not really knowing exactly what we would see. It turned out to be the place where the crown jewels were kept. Well, actually the crown and a sceptor and a huge sword. 

There was a large war memorial that was very impressive but along with the crown jewles display, there were no pictures allowed. 

All in all, we did not think the castle that impressive. Blame the rain perhaps or our expectations being too high. If we had it to do again and knew there would be a shuttle to Charlotte Square, we would have used that to get into the city, grabbed a ride on a hop on hop off bus and seen the castle on our own--or not. You needed to be sure to order tickets online since they are time sensitive. Many who showed up at the entrance without a prepurchase were turned away as the whole day was sold out.

Hindsight is always perfect.