Our itinerary reads: Edinburgh Castle/City Tour. Explore central Edinburgh starting in the 200 year old "New Town" with planned streets and elegant Georgian houses where many famous writers and inventors lived. See the "Royal Mile" with its narrow medieval houses, then tour Edinburgh Castle to see the Crown Jewels of Scotland and the Stone of Destiny. The rest of the day is free for you to explore. On July 31 - August 14th departures, attend the world famous Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo. **Our dates fell within that time frame and so we will be attending the Tattoo tonight.
As we toured the city via our coach, this was the first glimpse of The Castle. To the left you can see the back of stands erected for the Tattoo.
We're inside the area where the Tattoo will be held and we were able to find out seats. Nice to be able to do that during the day. We were in section 2 about 3 rows from the bottom. So...excellent seats. We'll be able to find our seats easier this evening since we got to locate them during daylight. The Tattoo begins at 9 pm. So this promises to be a long day. Our tour group is making our way through the gates following our local tour guide. Hope you can get a feel for how high up we are over looking the city below.
The Chapel. Many in our group got in the que to see the Crown Jewels. Jane and I had been there before when we toured Scotland and Ireland and so passed that by, and spent out time exploring the grounds and all the other buildings. Inside the Great Hall. The details in the wood carvings around the room are breathtaking. Explanations of some of the special things to see. Back outside, look at that view of the city well beneath us. See the people in the left center...look how small they look. Special resting place for mascots and regimental officers dogs in use since Queen Victoria's Reign 1837-1901. Looking down into garden cemetery area. After touring about, we elected to have a refreshment, before tackling all the shopping that exists on The Royal Mile. Indeed they were refreshing. It was also nice and quiet in the bar after being with the masses in the Castle and surrounding areas. Our old fashions were made with GlenCadam Reserva. We enjoyed our drinks so much we searched on the Royal Mile and were able to purchase a bottle to take bake to our hotel. I've since looked for it here unsuccessfully. Our shopping complete we're threading our way through the crowds to get back to where our coach is parked in order to get a ride back to the hotel and rest up a bit before grabbing some dinner and heading out again to the Castle for The Tattoo. You just never know what you're going to see in your travels.
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