Day 15 Edinburgh.

Askelapios

We awake refreshed, battle a whole school or German students to get some breakfast, then head off to the “Black Medicine Coffee” house for a coffee before tackling the Scottish National Museum.

Like most museums it is vast on multiple floors and hard to keep track of where you’ve been and where you should go next. Over two hours later after a surfeit of natural history and extinctions, native artefacts, very old stuff and very new stuff, models and interactive exhibitions, my feet are stuffed and we bale out for lunch.

Are we creatures of habit or what? Black Medicine Coffee for coffee and lunch.

Then off to the Museum of Childhood set up by a bachelor no less. Lots of old toys, dolls, board games and various childhood memory stuff, Meccano, Hornby Trains and the like.

Back to the Royal Mile to start a Free tour of the highlights of Edinburgh, in under 2 hours! Our guide is Chiara, from Italy, and she is quite delightful, with good stories and a nice presentation.

We revisit some of the hanging and guillotine sites, some more graveyards and a number of fine buildings with history thrown in.

Writers' Museum

We end at the Museum for Writers just off the Royal Mile in one of the many closes that run off it. The Museum celebrates Robert Louis Stevenson, Robert Burns and Thomas Kenneally (just checking that you are reading this). It was actually Sir Walker Scott!!

A quick beer and then back to the Hostel for some final laundry before heading out of town tomorrow.

We are a bit weary so settle for a pizza close by the hostel. I must say prices here are just horrendous! We are so lucky back home.

They wanted 4 pound 95 pence for a glass of Chilean Shiraz. That’s nearly $10.00.

We sleep well only to be woken, well at least I was, by singing from the courtyard at 4.30AM. Luckily, it soon stopped.