It was bright and sunny today, a far cry from the greyness of yesterday.
Woke up at 6am – still dealing with the time difference. Last night, the sky was bright up till 9pm. Today, 10pm, it’s like 7pm in Singapore.
We took a bus into town. The number 36 took a rather circuitous route to town. When we got off at the Waverly Station, we headed up Cockburn Street, following the walking map from Walk Highlands.
(It’s hard to get the lines straight with my 7-14mm lens.)
I was glad to be out early because later in the day, the streets were filled with tourists. The month of August is also Festival month, so there’s a lot of street shows, plays, comedy shows and so on. But I am not here for the Festival.
As we walked up High Street, a stretch of what is known as the Royal Mile, we found that narrow off-shoots off the main road are called Closes. And some of them contain very pretty courtyards, shops, cafes and so on. At Lady’s Stairs Close you can find The Writ’er’s Museum, but it only opened at 10am, and it was something like 8:30am.
Along the Royal Mile, you will also find places like The Elephant House, where they say Harry Potter was written.
The Hub splits the road up – Johnston Close on the left and I forget the name of the other street on the right. Heading up the right, you get to Edinburgh Castle. The frontage is now spoilt by the rafters of the Military Tattoo that happens during the Festival. Indeed, unless you are here for the Festival, I think it is better not to visit Edinburgh at this time. Temporary tents and structures really get in the way of the photographs.
Going by Edinburgh Castle, I think that the Japanese Castles are bit more interesting for photography. And the English ones are bigger and grander.
I’m really having trouble framing with this lens and getting a sense of the distortion created on the 7-14mm. Also, I’m missing the simplicity of just having my Voightlander lens on it. I think I need another Four Thirds body! It was a real hassle to keep swapping lenses.
The colourful buildings along Bow Street was fun. It’s in the Grassmarket area where they used to sell cattle. Now it’s just all for tourists.
The National Gallery and National Museum of Scotland are all free and worth spending time there. We didn’t have much time at The National Gallery as it closed at 6pm and we only got there at 5pm.
I really enjoyed the National Museum. Not only is it a fun museum with loads of activities. But the building is gorgeous too.
There’s a lot of free museums to visit too. The People’s Museum, the Childhood Museum. The Scottish Parliament. All of which we went in to have a look-see.
For the other one that you had to pay for, Holyrood Palace, we did not pay. Indeed, I wasn’t keen on too many castles, palaces etc. Britannia was enough of the Queen and her family. Do I really need to know how she lived? Or see her crown jewels over and over again? Anyway, we could peek at Holyrood Palace through the fence.
We completed our day with a visit to Princes Street Garden. There were loads of people there as some fringe performances for the Festival was happening around the National Gallery, where we viewed some very nice paintings. We saw the Balmoral Hotel as well from outside.
However, I chickened out of walking up the Walter Scott Monuments 287 steps.
