Rhonda Bracey: At Random

Trying to catch up… SOOO many experiences, so much good food, so many cocktails 🙂

Yesterday (Friday) we travelled from Pitlochry to Edinburgh, but on the way we stopped in for a couple of hours at Stirling Castle (why is the tapestry centre at the very back of the castle, outside the main walls, and down a steep cobbled road [and up again!]), where I saw woven tapestries of unicorns being hunted by medieval knights, thrones and beds where kings and queens sat and lay, and their palatial and HUGE apartments, castle keeps and walls, slits in walls much deeper than 1 metre for shooting arrows through, cannons, etc.

Then it was on the surprise of the day, the Falkirk Wheel. An amazing feat of engineering that replaces 11 locks that took 6+ hours for a canal boat to pass through, with one wheel that takes about 5 to 10 minutes to take a boat from the top level down 35 m to the bottom level.

And lastly, the Kelpies. No, not the working dogs beloved in Australia and NZ, but the mythical sea creatures with horses’ heads and front feet. These beasties are nowhere near as nice as the dogs! The sculptures of the two Kelpies are just massive — the small dots at the base of each are people!

Finally, we made it to Edinburgh and our hotel for the last 5 nights of our tour. This time our hotel is MUCH nicer than the Fawlty Towers hotel of the past 2 nights (Atholl Palace, Pitlochry), thank goodness!

All the food has been good, some great, but last night’s dinner was superb. We had it at the Cannonball Restaurant at the top of the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, and it was super good.

The weather today: grey and cloudy with spots of rain.