Wed 14 Aug - Edinburgh, Scotland

Press photos, Parliament, Poets and Pipers...

No early rush as nothing much opens before 10am, and we needed a little sleep-in after last night. Our voices seem to have recovered but we aimed for a quieter day before we attend our Edinburgh Military Tattoo event tonight.

First stop on our final day of wandering was the Scottish Parliament, where we would do a tour and also see the World Press Photos on display in the main entry hall.

Di was first at the doors when they opened at 10am.

A few minutes earlier she had been waiting, watching the clock, just outside...to their credit the Scottish do keep to schedules.

We signed up for an 11am tour and then checked out the World Press Photo exhibition. As always the quality was amazing but some topics hard to see - very confronting when faced with murder scenes and war deaths.

Hans realized they had free wifi and took a moment to catch up on emails.

Di's favourite photo...

The tour of the Scottish Parliament ran for an hour and moved from the public to the "authorized" area of the Parliament building. In the public section there were some displays about the history of Scottish parliament, including referendums from 1979 onwards to get some governing power back from the UK.

We liked these "beer coaster" promos for one of the referendum...

The parliament was designed by a spanish architecht and finished in 2004, so all very new. The building is full of symbols and materials intended to reflect Scotland - St Andrews Cross, maritime history and links to older government buildings. Lots of Scottish oak, granite and concrete but good light and airflow as most of the building is without air conditioning. Here we are looking down onto a public area.

The main parliament debating chamber uses a lot of oak. Seats are not reserved - a MPS (member of Scottish parliament) can sit and plugin from any seat but obviously they normally sit with their party friends, not the opposition party.

 

The peanut gallery (public gallery), where the rules are strict - no applauding, no photography, no heckling...

Hans considering other options for the peanut gallery - paper planes?

After a few hours of wandering in the parliament it was lunchtime and what a coincidence ...we are just down the road from Oink - our favourite roast pork shop. Or was that good planning on Di's behalf? Another delicious roll, one each for lunch. Note - Di ordered the smallest, Hans the medium.

We wandered west on The Royal Mile to St Giles Cathedral to check out its interior as we had heard about some interesting statues.

There was a free lunchtime concert in progress inside St Giles Cathedral and we sat down to enjoy two pianists playing one piano. It looked like a teacher (an older white dude) and his student (a young Asian girl) and they played very well indeed.

One of the reasons for going inside St Giles was to see the statue of the angel with bagpipes that we had heard about. We didn't initially find the angel, and had to ask, and then we were pointed to the chapel of the Order of the Thistle (the highest scottish honour) which was ornately carved in stone and wood. In there we were shown several angels playing a variety of instruments, almost an orchestra.

Fantastic and detailed woodwork inside.

What's wrong with this picture? Well, the inscription said that A. Campbell was "beheaded". Still...? We did note that some "comedian" seemed to have scratched a mark around his neck.

Out on The Royal Mile, Di detected the cast from the Puppets Up show that we saw the other night. She went up to congratulate them on their performance, in particular the now infamous(?) "Princess with no face" bedtime story. They agreed it was a good skit.

We then went check out the "Writers' Museum", housed in an old mansion which now is a quirky multilevel museum connected through low and narrow spiral stairwells. Let's see Di demonstrate here...

The Writers' Museum focused on the poet Robert Burns, and authors Robert Louis Stevenson and Sir Walter Scott where each one of them had their own dedicated section. Interesting and also free :-). Unusual for Edinburgh it was also peaceful with only a handful of punters like us, including a Malaysian guy who said he was studying in Egypt. What a mix and at this time too.

After that, time for a cuppa... Or so we thought. We went looking for another Patisserie Valerie, somewhere different to the one we had gone to before, one that we thought that we had seen around George Street in Edinburgh New Town, but we couldn't find it.

Slowly making our way back to the apartment, we stopped for an ice cream in an Italian themed cafe cum restaurant cum ice cream parlor operated by Eastern European girls at the corner of Leith Street and Waterloo Place. It was ok but nothing special.

Home for a break before getting ready for our Edinburgh finale, the Scotch Whisky Experience followed by the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo.

We had bought tickets which were referred to as "Taste of Scotland Bruce Package". This included a pre show 3 course small portions dinner with accompanying whiskey in a restaurant called "Amber". The restaurant is in a building which houses the "The Scotch Whisky Experience", a sort of temple to Whisky.

We arrived at the Royal Mile around 6.30pm, the Tattoo to start at 9pm, for our dinner and whisky. The area had already been closed off and there is a significant police presence there. Di was keen...

The "The Scotch Whisky Experience" building. Photo taken as we left for better night time effect.

The "Amber" restaurant, where we were allocated seats at a particular table. There we 10 people at our round table and it was a true international crowd; an Italian couple from Como, a Swiss couple from Geneva, an American family with 2 grown up children from New York City and us, I.e. nobody from the British Isles.

Yep, sampling of Whisky was on the agenda and different types for starter, main and dessert were already poured into glasses when we arrived. Later, and before each course, a lady in the Whisky know talked and explained about the different types. A bit like a wine tasting really...

The starter and the main meals both came in small portions of three. This was the starter with chicken liver parfait, salmon roulade and vegetarian haggis to the right. The latter seemed to be a bit of a contradiction somehow...

We were entertained by one of the Tattoo performers and then we had the opportunity to walk through and ooh and aah at their Whisky exhibition. First, the floor plan... For the Whisky that is.

And this is a small sample of all the Whisky bottles "The Scottish Whisky Experience" had on display. More around the corner.

The lightning made for interesting photography.

A self portrait among all the displays and mirrors...

Whisky, of course, is taken very seriously in Scotland and distilleries are broken down into different areas, supposedly with very differently tasting Whisky.

We are seated and high in anticipation. We had great seats with a gun barrel view of the grounds towards Edinburgh Castle.

Yep, not that far from the top.

Let the show begin...

Parts of the Tattoo was expected of course including the marching and the use of bagpipes.

The lone piper, part 1.

The Tattoo included a motorcycle show by young people from 6 to 16 years old. They were amazing.

There were contributions from different countries too. This was from Mexico.

We also had representation from South Korea and Mongolia. Both very good.

The South Korean dragon/lion was popular.

Mongolia...

And this marching band from New Zealand was a hoot. Can you tell that they are dancing to Gang-Nam style, the song by Korean artist Psy?

These lovely ladies were also part of the New Zealand contingent.

OK, we liked the Kiwis a lot. If you still had any doubts at the end of their performance as to where they came from, you could read it from them.

Approaching the end. Lots of colors and movements.

You can probably not see it, but at this time the music was "Auld Lang Syne" with the lyrics projected on the castle (white on blue). The punters sang...

Finale - fireworks...

 

The lone piper - part 2, now on top of Edinburgh Castle.

Time to go home after an extraordinary experience. The 1 hour and 45 minutes disappeared very quickly and this is something we will not forget for a while. Did we also mention that BBC was filming and would be doing so for the whole week? Who knows, we may end up on TV. Di has some experience of that from local Brooklyn TV in New York City... Maybe that was on her mind here...

A very orderly exit given the crowds. We were very lucky with the weather as it started to rain as we left the Tattoo just after this photo was taken.

A shortish night's sleep as we need to pack up tomorrow morning to leave Edinburgh for Newcastle were we will pick up a car a whole month. For now, good night.

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