Edinburgh: Friday

On Friday, Lizzi took the reins. Friday's plan was to start with the castle but we also managed to use the opportunity to pick up one which we were passing on the way:

• Lady Stairs Close (Blue)
  
• Edinburgh Castle (Purple)

We almost walked past the entrance to Lady Stairs Close without spotting it. Edinburgh (Old Town) seems to be filled with these little tiny dark lanes, all with curious sounding names. Lots of them are mentioned in the haunted Edinburgh book Lyndsey bought.


After lots of short stops on the previous two days it was nice to get a really good look at the castle. I think we covered almost all of it, the exceptions mostly being the Military Museums. I took quite a lot of photos - I'd like to have a go at making a panorama with them.


Following the castle, our plan was to get some lunch and then do the dungeons. We had a little bit of time to kill as it wasn't quite lunchtime yet. Lizzi fancied visiting the Guide shop so we went in search of that - unfortunately it was as far from where we were as it conceivably could be! On our way we also got some photos for a couple of the other board spaces:

• Edinburgh Waverley (Station)
• Bank of Scotland (Community Chest)
  

A happy accident - we found the Bank of Scotland (just over the road from a folk music shop that we nearly visited). Looks like they've got a museum there which I hadn't realised from all my scouting around - I had enough problems trying to work out where it was!


Having completely failed to find a good picture of Waverley on either of the occasions we'd visited to catch a train, we a really nice view from a bridge on our way from the Castle. I stopped to take quite a few pictures here knowing that, if nothing else, Hobnob would appreciate them!


When we did find the Guide Shop I picked up some Holiday badges for my Brownies and an Edinburgh cloth badge for my camp blanket. Walking back it was now definitely lunch time! Once done with lunch, it was on to the dungeons:

• Edinburgh Dungeons (Prince's St/Go To Jail)

We weren't allowed to take any pictures in the dungeons and it didn't occur to us to take anything outside (though I don't remember there being much to look at outside) so there's nothing to show here. According to a rather hysterical drama student (who totally broke out of character once Tom said he was Coventry) I spent last night dancing naked singing chants - and I thought we'd just been playing cards. All done at the dungeons, we headed out to Holyrood:

• Holyrood (Red)
• Scottish Parliament (Green)
  
• The Royal Mile (Yellow)

Holyrood itself is a fairly busy area in terms of attractions, hosting the Palace of Holyrood, the Queen's Gallery, the Scottish Parliament, Arthur's Seat and Our Dynamic Earth. As the Scottish Parliament already features on the board we'd decided to use the Palace in the photos but it was a little dark and I struggled to get good pictures.


Having wandered a little in confusion, we eventually discovered that we'd come in past the Scottish Parliament - clearly none of enough know enough about politics to know what the building looks like. Sadly it was far too big for any really effective photos and the poor light didn't really help, but here's a bit of it!


Holyrood is also the start of the Royal Mile.


Having made a plan to pick up those four we'd thought about getting yesterday, we headed out towards FountainBridge for dinner:

• Grindlay Street (Yellow)
• FountainBridge (Red)
• Rutland Court (Green)
• Charlotte Lane (Yellow)

Grindley Street was a nice easy find and we got a quick picture outside the theatre there.

From Grindley Street we carried on to FountainBridge for tea at an Italian restaurant. A proper city restaurant, the kind I miss from London.

On our way back, we picked up the last two far out ones (or at least something that approximated to them). We couldn't find a Rutland Court - but got a Rutland Court Lane which must have been pretty close.
For this final night, our dormitory for six now had another two guests in it so we headed down to reception to play cards - Mau again. Having been thrown out of the reception around 11:30pm (because they were closing up, not because we were behaving terribly!), we found a spot in the corridor instead and attempted to keep the noise down whilst playing Coffee Pot. I think it was around 2am when Tom, Lyndsey and I went to bed!