THE KING JAMES EDINBURGH
Today we
sent most of the morning in the Scottish Highlands (passed Balmoral Castle obscured from view by carefully planted
pines)
The area has
some sheep but mainly looks “moonscapey” – large squares of heather burnt off
to encourage new growth (takes 7 years to fully recover). The heather has
almost finished flowering although there are still some patches of purple. Sheep
are there but Iin very small numbers. Only grouse eat the heather, and they are
hunted in season (how barbaric!). We actually saw some grouse and even a few
pheasants. We stopped
at Braemar a quant village- but not too small that it didn’t have a coffee shop.
The houses are stone and look lovely …but must get cold in winter of course. They all have chimneys.
The bus
takes winding “back “roads a lot and because of this we see some amazing
scenery. A lot of the roads are so narrow that two vehicles (especially when
one is a bus) can’t pass.
It as easy
to know when we had left the highlands, lower of course but also green fields
and cultivated areas now dotted the landscape.
We reached
St Andrews (famous for its golf) and there were golfers, golf shops, golf pubs
etc…
The beach is
the location for the "Chariots of Fire" running scene – guess who replayed it?
Soup at a pub
then on to Edinburgh I snoozed on the bus. The hotel is in the heart of Edinburgh
and there were crowds of people around on Saturday afternoon.
After a short rest we went to a “Scottish’ night at the hotel. It was lots of fun, dinner, Scottish dancing, bagpiper, reels and jokes…and even a taste of haggis!
No comments:
Post a Comment