A Visit to the Capital.

             Good Afternoon, I think I have just about recovered from our big adventure yesterday.  We were up with lark and caught the bus as 8-28am it was on time so that made a great start to the day.  We had a very pleasant journey to Edinburgh and were there by 9-30am.thought I would add the a.m. in case you thought  we got caught up in traffic till evening. I think we must have missed the morning rush as we drove through what traffic there was not bother at all.  We alighted from the bus at the west end of Princes Street and headed of course for the nearest coffee shop. After a coffee and a natter we started along Princes Street. We crossed the road and entered Princes Street Gardens. These gardens run almost the whole length of Princes Street so its may seem strange to a visitor that all the shops are on one side of the road and the gardens and the National Art Gallery Scotland on the other.  The Gallery is where we were headed. I think I said in my last entry that this was not a shopping trip we were going to be doing touristy things.  We spent a long time wandering around all the beautiful paintings and sculptures. There is an exhibition on just now of Rembrandt  drawings, 400 years old many of biblical. After our wander round half of the gallery we had a look in the shop and I bought some Christmas cards. By this time we were in need of lunch, there is a lovely patio cafe attached to the gallery so we had our lunch there.  We then walked the rest of the gardens along past the Scott Monument built in remembrance of Sir Walter Scott it really dominates the skyline. You can walk right to the top but I can honestly say I have been there and done that and have the certificate to prove it and I know I would never make it up there now. We walked up the Mound up towards the castle. Now we did not go up to the castle yesterday as we are planning more visits in the future. We then crossed over onto the shopping side of Princess street for another coffee and went into Jenners that's a famous Edinburgh shop and sat and recuperated for a while with a pot of coffee until it was time to make our way to the bus station and our homeward journey.  The bus was late in arriving and by the time we got home we were running 1 hour late. I have been to Edinburgh many times but I have never seen it so busy it was absolutely jumping with tourist and local people finishing work for the week. There is and another exhibition on till the end of September of paintings by Vincent Van Gogh its largest show of his work in Britain for forty years and tells the fascinating story of how his pictures ended up on British soil, we are looking forward to going to see all of the paintings. I am now going to download some pictures we took yesterday which should make more sense of this entry. Had a great day out with our bus pass and will do it again soon? Have a good Bank Holiday Weekend,  Love