Morning hike for Hans, admin and lunch in Princes Street Gardens and Faulty Towers.
Di had a "bad night" and went back to sleep as Hans got ready for just a little hike up to the top of Arthur's Seat, elevation 250 meters. Yep, looking daggy... but proud of it!
Aha, that's were it goes...
As there are no trees around, you can see pretty much all of your surroundings including the various paths, which were far more plentiful than what the map showed.
Almost there, looking back east.
A mandatory self portrait of the conqueror...
... And an additional photo next to the 2nd marker taken by a friendly fellow conqueror.
Confirmation of the height or elevation of Arthur's Seat, a staggering 250 meters, but gosh, the views...!!!
Back towards Waverly Station. Our apartment is behind there somewhere.
This "rock graffiti" was clearly visible from the top of Arthur's Seat. Thank you, will do.
Hans had hiked up to Arthur's Seat from the east and was now descending on its western side. This is looking back to where he came from.
The main path back to where Hans started was almost at road level and was nevertheless closed due to a rock fall. However, it was possible to choose among several different paths, all clearly visible from a distance in this treeless environment. So Hans chose hiking up again and walk along the edge of this ridge.
Ahh, the grassland.
And if you hike along the edge, the views as you curve around are great. Looking west here.
Looking down on the Palace of Hoylyrood House on the right, and the new Scottish Parliament on the left. Very very different architecture and era.
The Parliament seemed to have had a fair bit of landscaping effort put into its grounds.
Hans completed his loop towards the apartment by walking around the Palace of Holyrood House, under the railway bridge, around the Regent Gardens and via London Road with its row of good looking houses as per below.
Hans returned to the apartment around 10am, happy with his walk, and found Di awake but still lazing in bed with a book. She felt much better too. After showers and tea we were ready to do some admin tasks before exploring Edinburgh further.
First stop Waverley station for rail tickets for Thursday. Ticket collection via the machine worked perfectly so within 10 minutes we were back out looking for somewhere to print a single page for a travel insurance claim. The company insisted on the paper being completed, signed and scanned back to them and yes, this goes back to Hans hospital visit on the 1st of July in Beverly, MA, USA.
The local Internet cafe was out of business and we were referred to the tourist info centre where they had computers and a printer. For £1 we got what we needed - all worked well.
While at the tourist info, we thought we should actually collect some information about touring Scotland. Di went a bit overboard...
...and the price she paid was to carry all that paper in her backpack for the rest of our exploring. Not that we went far.
First stop Prince Street Gardens. This is a lovely terraced park that sits in the valley between New Town and Old Town Edinburgh. The park was started in the 1770's after the draining of Nor Loch, a reservoir between the hills that was often polluted (and smelled) due to a lack of sewerage in Old Town. Guess where the tipped chamber pots flowed?
Who knows whether that accounts for the lush gardens there now but we can safely report "no smell" and that it was popular with the lunchtime crowds. We joined them and enjoyed the weather.
Prince Street Gardens is split in half by the Scottish National Gallery. The western half looks much the same as this eastern section.The red brick building you can see in the background is the Caledonian, the old railway station (more on that later). Di was watching the world stroll by at the bottom of the steps and waiting for Hans.
Hans was keen for a coffee and we found a kiosk deep in the park - great location, but terrible coffee. Oh well.
Our entertainment for lunch was provided by the Edinburgh Parks duo of "Dumb and Dumber" who for some unknown reason were collecting random park benches with this little vehicle. They would approach a bench (that we assumed must have been on their list), stopped the vehicle and between them appeared to re-check the list about 6 times before getting out. Then they grabbed the selected bench, slung it on the back, no tie down or support and drove off. In one instance we saw them wheel around a corner so fast one of the benches keeled at a serious angle and we waited for the crash. Seriously where was candid camera?
These people watched in trepidation expecting to be evicted at any moment...
Lovely...the walls here have not been touched - they are the old railway platform walls and the gap between them was covered to create a "Peacock Alley" as per New York. The Waldorf Astoria chain only opened this place in September last year and from what we could see had done a great decorating job.
This station clock survived the 1890 fire here.
We slowly meandered homeward down George Street (new to us) and liked that part of the street was closed to traffic and used by pop up terrace areas, bars and a Spiegeltent as Fringe Festival venue.
The bar of the Spiegeltent. George Street looking east.
We arrived home for a few hours break before heading out to our Fringe Fesitval dinner and show tonight, with a somewhat familiar crowd...
Dinner and show started at 8pm and we arrived around 6pm for pre-dinner drinks... next door at the Brass Monkey. Note the high tech red box office outside B'est Restaurant.
The Brass Monkey pub was a positive surprise for several reasons. First, they sold bottles of Ceasar Augustus, as the label said a "lager / IPA hybrid", surprisingly good...
Secondly, they had small and lovingly dinky rooms from a different era and they played very good blues through their PA system.
Fourthly, we were not sure what to call this room, but the Brass Monkey provided lie down couches where the punters had made themselves very comfortable while they drank their alcoholic drink of choice. We suspected that they may have to come in here and wake up some drunks at closing time.
Also, in the room above, they screened movies every afternoon at 3pm, movies on demand. So, we supposed that the punters who turned up could vote for a movie and then one with most votes would be screened.
Now, what's wrong with this picture dated "Times Square 1942"? Well, if you are a film buff you would probably know that the superb movie "The Third Man" (in fact one of the best movies ever made :-) was set in post WWII Vienna and was not released until 1949. Hmmm...
At around 7.30pm we walked next door and "checked in" as they called it at the high tech booth in the laneway next to the B'est restaurant that you saw earlier. Then we stood there and waited... And waited... Until 8pm, when Basil, Sybil and Manuel appeared in the laneway. And the fun began...
A few happy snaps of the Faulty Towers "management"...
Mr and Mrs Faulty.
Manuel
Sybil
We were all allocated a table number and then wandered into the restaurant to sit down at that table. Of course, not without some remarks from Basil. A couple with the name of Wiseman were just fodder for fun.
The show was a sort of greatest hits from the TV series, with the favorite lines at some point during the night, but a lot of it was improvised. We heard the "hamster" (lost rat) gag and the German gag including a short march by Basil.
Di became an integral part of the show. First, she received the one and only soup that the chef had lost something in... Of course, that would be his dentures...Di was also referred to as "Einstein" by Basil for yelling out smart remarks.
The next 3 photos all cover the same gag where Manuel is climbing up on our table... and over a woman... and back down over her again.
Up...
Staying up...(Manuel understood this to be "wait on table")
And down.
In summary, the "Faulty Towers" show was hilarious and we were laughing so hard that we both got coarse and partly lost our voices. Not many photos as we were too busy to enjoy the show and it was also so fast that many photos got blurry. The food was ordinary and incidental to the show, but who cares?
A most pleasant day yet again as we wandered back to the apartment some time after 10pm. A mild night with a lot of punters out and about, but we will call it Good night.
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