“What do you mean I’ve sampled most of the single malt scotch produced in Scotland?” – Me
Sunday morning, after we settled in to an excellent two bedroom flat in Oldtown Edinburgh, we went on a private tour from Mini Mack tours. Andy, our driver and tour guide took us to some sites in Edinburgh a little off the beaten path of typical tourist locations.
The first place we went was Duddingston which is just South of the Hollyrood palace grounds and park…her majesty wasn’t in residence but the park is closed to traffic on Sundays. Duddingston is home to several interesting sites, the Sheep Heid Inn (sheep head) purportedly the oldest Inn in Scotland, the Neil’s Garden an early homeopathic garden which has received awards from the Queen and Duddingston loch where the rules for game of curling (remember the winter Olympics and the sport with large rocks and brooms? That’s curling) were initially created and form a significant part of the modern curling rules of today.
BTW her Royal Highness has dined here within the last two years.
Duddingston Church – tower was to keep a lookout for body snatchers
Fake window in middle was to beat the tax collector as there was a window tax at one time
Neils Garden
From Duddingston we went to Calton Hill a local park with some panoramic views of Edinburgh.
View to West – Calton Hill
From there we went to Leith, an area which was, until recent gentrification was one of the seedier areas of Edinburgh
From Leith we went to the Fourth Firth which leads to the land of Fife….I kid you not.
and saw the massive Fourth Bridge a railway Bridge built in the late 1800s and still in use
the history of the bridge and its development is quite interesting if one is into that sort of thing it is worth googling.
After lunch at a local pub it was back to the Royal Mile to stop at on of the many scotch whiskey shops located along the mile. Not sure what is says about me but I was a little disappointed to find that I had, at some point in time in the past, sampled most of the major whiskey distiller’s in Scotland LOL though it was fun to get into some in depth discussions with the sales clerk and it did get me a wee dram to sample of a small Speyside distillery. It was good and the price was fair but I just didn’t want to have to schelp it all the way back to the states.
Tomorrow Edinburgh Castle and the conclusion of this blog.
Lou Hikes? 