TartanTed

On our boys side trip to Dublin, which took place on a dull day in Edinburgh, I missed the opportunity to get a photograph of the bridges over the River Forth as we took off in our little puddle jumper and flew parallel to the river for a few minutes.

I just wasn’t quick enough to figure out which direction the plane would take off and once airborne the opportunity had past before I could get the camera out.

Today, as we taxied down the Edinburgh runway on our flight to Newark, I was a little more in tune with what was going on and I spotted the bridges from my side of the aircraft; the wrong side for take off!

However Andrew was in the window seat on the right side so I passed the camera to him and the result is shown below. He made his Daddy very happy 🙂

Bridges over the River Forth

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Looking back at my itinerary, I call it mine as no one else paid much attention to it, we have checked most of the boxes against things we proposed to do.

Not many of my suggestions for places to eat came to fruition but that’s fine. Eating was driven by necessity rather than convenience  and we were not on a culinary tour anyway. I say we were not on a culinary tour but there was the small matter of fish and chip shops; Andrew developed a passion for these British institutions on our last trip to Scotland and so we did manage to fit in at least four meals from “chippies”

Our last day in Edinburgh was supposed to consist of three parts:

• Chambers Street Museum
• Holyrood Palace
• Shopping

National Museum of Scotland

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Our Grand Tour is almost at an end and we have a few “must do” items to take care of before we start to pack for the journey home.

Tomorrow we will still have some fun stuff to do but today is the last day for out of town traveling.

Tantallon Castle

Tantallon Castle, built in the 1300’s, was  home to the Red Douglas dynasty. It is located close to North Berwick and commands spectacular views of the Bass Rock with its’ Gannet colony. For my wife and I it can probably be claimed as the site at which we mutually decided to throw caution to the wind and get married. That was 18 years ago and it has worked out pretty well for both of us. Unfortunately no amount of romantic nostalgia would persuade Patty to scale the ramparts again to take a commemorative photograph.

North Berwick

North Berwick, the location of my childhood summer vacations, was a must visit site. We used to take a bus down the coast to this small seaside town on a daily basis for a week during the school vacation. More often than not it was cool and damp; Scotland is not known for hot summers!

Gullane

Gullane, home to a least 3 golf courses, was another place we used to visit. My Mother, Grandmother, and I would sometimes get off the North Berwick bus early and spend the day on the beach at Gullane.
My mother was very fond of Gullane and that is why, 2 years ago, I scattered her ashes somewhere that I know she would be happy to “live”. Today, as a family, we went to visit Granny.

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Friday night in Edinburgh means different things to different folks. Judging by some of the drunken ramblings of people at bus stops I’m not sure why I would want to be here anytime for any reason.

I’ll admit that is probably too harsh an assessment from a sober visitor who is no longer used to big city life but really, some of the language and opinions that my children were subjected to in the public domain were less than ideal.

Anyhoo:

• Dinner with friends
• Rampant reminiscing
• Skating on ice
• Shopping the Christmas market

Friday in Edinburgh

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Two years ago Andrew and I had effectively a personal tour of Stirling Castle. We were there on a cold, damp, foggy day and we were in the company of Ann and Mike who happen to be Blue Badge Guides.

So you could say Andrew knows a lot about Stirling Castle. He certainly knows enough to politely decline the invitation to visit it again this year! 

However Patty and Emily have not visited Stirling for a number of years and wanted to see the work that has been done to the site in recent years. Thus Andrew was dispatched to a hill in Lanarksire with Karen, Lindsay, and several dogs in search of snow and adventure while we three headed to Stirling.

Andrew hill walking photos to follow when I get them, in the meantime here are a few photos from the Stirling Castle visit.

Stirling Castle

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Our Grand Tour is progressing at such a pace that I am having difficulty finding time to publish a roundup of our activities so please forgive the out of sequence postings.

From our time in Northumberland, at Vindolanda, there is a river in the gorge by the museum/gift shop which was flowing orange last time we were there. No orange water this time but here is a picture of the bridge over the Chineley Burn – bridge #9

This morning we dropped Andy off with Karen to go hill walking and added the frosty bridge over Coulter Burn to the list as bridge #10.

On the way back from Stirling we stopped at the Dobbie’s Garden Center roundabout and recorded bridge #11 on the A84. It did not have any descriptive signs so I suspect that it was the bridge over the River Forth before the road became the A84 and had more than horses and carts crossing over it!

Bridge Update #3

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Friday, day 7 of our Grand European tour of bridges or family vacation as my wife likes to call it, and we meet up with Auntie Ann at South Queensferry to walk the Forth Road Bridge.

At 3.107 miles (5 km) it is slightly shorter than the 3.42 miles of the Corpus Christi Harbor Bridge walk and at 32F it is considerably cooler than the Corpus Christi walk.

Also the dedicated walker / cyclist lane is much wider and much less steep than its’ Corpus Christi equivalent.

The Forth Road Bridge becomes bridge #7 on the tour and just for good measure we added Cramond Brig on the way home as #8

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Andrew was obsessed with the frost and ice at Vindolanda so when we got back to Edinburgh I set him loose on the Edinburgh Christmas ice rink in St. Andrew’s Square.

Emily joined him on the ice rink; they both fell down and they both had fun.

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