Edinburgh - we love it!

From the first glimpse we could tell we were going to love Edinburgh.

We arrived off the bus from Dundee on Saturday evening and were met by Helen and Robert who we are staying with. The 2 min walk up to their place from the bus stop is gorgeous.

Sunday morning we headed into town for a 3 hour walking tour.
It covered a great breadth of history starting 320 million years ago when Edinburgh was volcanic, situated on the equator and covered in jungle, then fast forwarding a few years to when the ice age came through and carved up the landscape.

The hard rock of the dead volcanoes protected the rock behind and today two of the volcanoes are home to the Edinburgh Castle (first photo below) and the Holyrood palace (the Queen’s official residence in Scotland) (2nd photo) They are joined by the line of protected rock now roaded over called the Royal mile (3rd photo).

These two volcanoes joined by the royal mile are the high point of the landscape and streets drop off very steeply to either side. There used to be a lake at the bottom but that was drained and replanted to form what is now the Princess gardens.
The castle, palace and royal mile on the south side of the lake are now called the old city. New town is the other side of the lake (gardens).

The whole city has a completely different look and feel to Aberdeen. Partly it is the fact that eleven festivals are held in Edinburgh during August, and brings out some colourful characters

……like these likely lads eating café breakfast in their nighties as well as lots of street performers.

But it is also clear that Edinburgh buildings have a style of their own.

Will include interesting snippets of Edinburgh history in another post.