The Edinburgh City

On reaching Edinburgh I checked in to the youth hostel and rested for some time. Then I started for the Edinburgh Palace. The street from this palace to the Holyrood Palace is called the Royal Mile. On it there are many other places to visit. First I walked along the Princess Street which runs parallel to the Royal Mile. From here you can see the old buildings.

The Scott Monument on Princess Street..

in front of the monument..

It was raining lightly. Entry to the castle was around 13pounds. This included a guided tour of the palace. the entry of the palace..



The guide showed us around. He told us that the palace was so safe that it had never been taken by force. The view from the top was nice.

The guide just gave a description of each part of the castle from outside.

Then you could visit each part at your own pace. Exhibits inside..




There was a hall where the crown jewels of Scotland were kept along with a stone called Stone of Destiny. This was a stone on which all the kings were coronated. It had a nice exhibition leading to it with stories of the Scottish kings.




Some more views in the palace..



the Edinburgh cityscape..

inside a church on the premises..

there was also an exhibition on the history of Scotland..


St. Giles cathedral..

Till the time I left Edinburgh Palace it was 4pm. The place from where I had to rent the car was open till 5,so I quickly ran to it. I took a Ford Fiesta from Hertz. This I got at around 20 pounds per day. I also took a GPS which was additional 14pounds per day. I was thinking whether taking it was a good choice or not as the Hertz person was saying its not required, all roads are well marked. Here Fiesta is not a sedan like in India but a hatchback. My car..

Since there was still time left and I also had a car, I decided to drive down towards Rosslyn Chapel which was 7miles from Edinburgh. This is the same chapel which was shown in movie The Da Vinci code. I had taken a GPS navigator with the car but it took me some time to get used to it. This involved lot of wrong turns and angry horns from the people driving behind me. The Hertz salesman had said that the Chapel is on the way to Penicuik. Till the time I reached Roslin, it was already closed. Damn!! It was getting dark, so I quickly returned to Edinburgh. After reaching the hostel, I printed out the route for the road trip and went to sleep.

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