Edinburgh
We are floating in a calm sea toward the Faroe Islands after a wonderful three days in Scotland, from Edinburgh, to Invergordon, to Scrabster in the far North.
My visit to Edinburgh was all about family and friends. Marge, Rae and I walked around the heavily touristed area of Grassmarket, including the street after which Harry Potter’s Daigon Alley was modeled, noting the beautiful old buildings and setting in the heart of an old stone built city. I had a brief visit to the National Museum of Scotland and Greyfriar’s Church which gave me some sense of the connection of the past to the present.
Then we joyfully met up with our good friend Peg’s daughter, Becca. She has lived almost all of her adult life here, married and having raised two fine children in a nearby town. We thoroughly enjoyed her company and it felt like we were all connecting with home.
Becca drove us to the Royal Botanic Gardens, a large expanse of green plantings, around which we strolled after a lunch together at their cafe. These gardens, like all national museums in Scotland. are free and open to all. Except, it seems, tht various castles, whose funding is different, charge high tourist prices for entrance. Although we had stereotypical Scottish weather, grey overcast, cool with occasional sun, we had no actual rain until just before we disembarked from our tender boat which took us from the Newhaven docks back to our ship and then my umbrella was very useful.
Our group of 11 is very compatible and we have all been having a good time together, including some evenings at the ship’s Trivia Quiz, sharing our knowledge with feeble attempts at obtuse questions. Our dinners, usually with 6-9 people have been outstanding with excellent cuisine, although with too many choices of too much good food so we are now slowing down our consumption to stay healthy. The composition of the 1100 passengers on board are mainly American, and mainly over 70, with almost no young people or children. We often don’t finish dinner until 8:30, sometimes 9 or, like last night, 10 pm, and are usually the last group to exit the dining rooms. There are 4 specialty restaurants we have been enjoying which have an even higher level of service and menu and which must be booked in advance. These are better for me as due to my dietary requirement of very low sodium, I need to get special orders of anything I choose. I think we all have expanding waistlines after our first week on board.
