Edinburgh, Scotland
After a morning spent cruising the Firth of Forth, passing the Isle of May and Bass Rock to the south, we arrived in Leith, out-port of Edinburgh, the Scottish capital. A kilted piper heralded our arrival as we downed haggis and neeps in the dining room. Our afternoon tour gave us a taste of this beautifully situated city, its ancient castle - containing the Scottish crown jewels and the stone of destiny - dominating the medieval Old Town and elegant Georgian architecture providing contrast in the eighteenth century New Town. The renowned Royal Mile connects Edinburgh Castle not only to the Queen's residence in the Scottish capital, Holyrood House, but also to the building site where Scotland's new Parliament is being built.
For times have been a-changing in this most northerly of the nations that make up the United Kingdom. The revival of a Scottish Parliament, in abeyance for three centuries, has energized the city. Leith, the city's dockland, has become a fashionable quarter of the city, with former bonded warehouses now being converted for stylish residential use. Moored alongside us was the former Royal Yacht Britannia, thought too expensive a luxury even for the royal family in cost-conscious times. Like United Kingdom postage stamps, the royal yacht does not bear its name: it simply is the royal yacht from which all other vessels are to be distinguished. In the evening we were invited aboard for a champagne reception and had a tantalizing glimpse of life with the Royals. A Rolls Royce stowed aboard for royal visits, the state dining-room, both Queen's and the Duke of Edinburgh's bedrooms, the officer's mess (grace in rhyming couplets said standing up) and the engine room. All were immaculate. To a social historian it causes an eyebrow to rise to imagine such things surviving to the end of the nineteenth century let alone the twentieth. It was a coup deliciously full of irony that saw Scotland succeed in the competition to house this symbol of a colonial past at the heart of its forward-looking capital city.
After a morning spent cruising the Firth of Forth, passing the Isle of May and Bass Rock to the south, we arrived in Leith, out-port of Edinburgh, the Scottish capital. A kilted piper heralded our arrival as we downed haggis and neeps in the dining room. Our afternoon tour gave us a taste of this beautifully situated city, its ancient castle - containing the Scottish crown jewels and the stone of destiny - dominating the medieval Old Town and elegant Georgian architecture providing contrast in the eighteenth century New Town. The renowned Royal Mile connects Edinburgh Castle not only to the Queen's residence in the Scottish capital, Holyrood House, but also to the building site where Scotland's new Parliament is being built.
For times have been a-changing in this most northerly of the nations that make up the United Kingdom. The revival of a Scottish Parliament, in abeyance for three centuries, has energized the city. Leith, the city's dockland, has become a fashionable quarter of the city, with former bonded warehouses now being converted for stylish residential use. Moored alongside us was the former Royal Yacht Britannia, thought too expensive a luxury even for the royal family in cost-conscious times. Like United Kingdom postage stamps, the royal yacht does not bear its name: it simply is the royal yacht from which all other vessels are to be distinguished. In the evening we were invited aboard for a champagne reception and had a tantalizing glimpse of life with the Royals. A Rolls Royce stowed aboard for royal visits, the state dining-room, both Queen's and the Duke of Edinburgh's bedrooms, the officer's mess (grace in rhyming couplets said standing up) and the engine room. All were immaculate. To a social historian it causes an eyebrow to rise to imagine such things surviving to the end of the nineteenth century let alone the twentieth. It was a coup deliciously full of irony that saw Scotland succeed in the competition to house this symbol of a colonial past at the heart of its forward-looking capital city.
