The Essence of Scotland
This post is titled “England: Day 11, Edinburgh” but we were actually in Scotland. We drove from our hotel in Gretna down to Carlisle, where we caught the train to Edinburgh for the day. Opinions of the day were mixed. Personally, besides the necessary driving days, this was my least favorite day of the entire trip. From my perspective, going to Edinburgh during the festival is a good idea only if you aren’t interested in seeing Edinburgh. First, the streets, the castle, and the entire place is jammed with people. I’m talking “make London seem quite” full of people. Second, you cannot see the castle from the Royal Mile and you cannot see the Royal Mile from the castle. They put up a temporary (but still very substantial) stadium around the esplanade below the castle and that’s all you really see. There are good people watching opportunities, evidenced by this photograph of your typical Scottish accordionist (playing Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, by the Beatles), but you don’t need to go all the way to Scotland to see interesting people. So, this is one day I would have rather been doing something else. Still, when you travel with others, you see a mix of things. One day you see something you want to see, other days you see something someone else wants to see. And I wouldn’t have been with a different group of people anywhere else for anything.