September 15 2023 – Friday
I was originally supposed to travel around Scotland for 12 days in September and then go to Italy for another week or so. When we learned that our son was opening his first restaurant in New Orleans (www.platesnola.com) the day I was scheduled to fly to Edinburgh, I changed my flights to leave a week later. I packed days ahead of time and had everything ready to go the night before the trip. In the evening I discovered that the internet router, my network drive containing 20 years of files and the television all got fried by an afternoon storm. So I spent the morning before my afternoon flight shopping for new equipment (Office Depot opens at 8am) and reconfiguring what I could. While I was working on that, the pool guy let me know the pump was fried as well. I managed to get the cable modem and router rebuilt. And will deal with the rest when I get home. Did a hand-off to Bill via text messages.
The United flight from Pensacola via Chicago to Edinburgh was quite easy. The transatlantic flight was less than 7 hours, hardly time to sleep. We arrived in the morning and I took the Airlink 100 shuttle bus to Haymarket Station, a 10 minute walk to the apartment we had rented. The host was kind enough to let me leave my bags in the unit so I could explore the town.
Edinburgh is an easy town to get around on foot or by bus/tram/taxi. I walked to a stop for the hop-on hop-off bus in the New Town. These open top busses are cheesy but it is a great way to get the lay of the land – ours had a live guide (green tour) explaining the sights, though I could hardly understand his thick brogue.
I ended my bus trip in front of St. John’s Church and explored the adjoining St. Cuthbert’s Burial Ground, a 16th century cemetery. The first church on these grounds was built around the 8th century and the current building in the 19th century. The cemetery sits below street level.
Late afternoon I headed back on foot to our apartment which is located on Caledonian Crescent in an apartment building close to some excellent restaurants. Along the way I checked out the many vintage shops and thrift stores, on the hunt for some books to read by Scotland authors. I ended up reading the first in a series by Alexander McCall Smith called 44 Scotland Street and a couple of murder mysteries by Edinburgh’s famous author Ian Rankin.
The girls arrived in the evening on their drive from Inverness. We headed to a nearby restaurant that served excellent tapas with some Spanish and Greek dishes. La Casa Dalry was a hit and we returned again later in our visit. (la-casa-restaurant.co.uk). We had hummus, eggplant dip, a Greek salad, grilled veggies, calamari, grilled octopus, spanakopita and more.
