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Our Year of Adventure
Breakfast was served early at the Edinburgh Central Guesthouse, but we needed to be up early anyway, we still had a lot of things we wanted to do today. It was a continental breakfast and very good, we had freshly made coffee to order to go with our cereal, fresh fruit and berries, a variety of cheese, olives, bread and croissants. Considering we only paid £58 for the two of us, in a very central location, a breakfast this good was a total surprise especially after getting used to coffee, dry bread and a piece of stale cake in Argentina.
We went round a few of the shops on Princess Street looking for Christmas gifts. The shopping was not as successful as we hoped. Edinburgh is not blessed with good shops for non-tourists and we were looking for useful and practical gifts, not just tartan for the sake of tartan. The good shops are in Glasgow, but we didn't have the time to go there.
We headed back to the old town and up to the top end of the Royal Mile, to Camera Obscura and World of Illusions. As well as having a camera obscura, it had 4 floors of visual illusions. We had 5 minutes to spare before the camera obscura show at 12pm so we wandered round the outdoor view points on the 5th floor of the building. It had great views of the city and the castle next door to us.
A camera obscura is basically a pinhole camera projecting the image reflected off a mirror (in this case, the mirror being on the roof of the building). It was a cloudy day, which is not really that unusual in Edinburgh at any time of the year, so there were no colors but once our eyes adjusted to the light the image was fine. Our guide told us how the camera worked and we were shown (more for the benefit of kids) how to "pick up" people on pieces of paper and drop them back on the ground. We were then given a 'guided tour' of the city from where we sat, with the landmarks being pointed out as we circled around.
After the show was over, we worked our way down through the four floors of interactive fun and illusions using light and mirrors, playing around like kids. Amongst others there was a mirror maze, morphing face machine and a skeleton that copied your movements.
The one that messed with your mind the most, or at least David's, was the 'Warp Tunnel'. It was a steel bridge of maybe 10m (30 foot) long, which had a cylinder of lights revolving around it. Sounds pretty tame, but it's not. David took two steps inside immediately feeling sick and being tipped upside down, which made him grab for left handrail with both hands as his knees buckled. Gingerly, he stood up, faced the end of tunnel and with a hand on each handrail he managed slow steps to the end. Once out of the tunnel everything was fine again. He did try it another couple of times to see if experience made any difference, it didn't - only closing your eyes seemed to.
With the fun and games behind us, we were back to the tourist trail on the Royal Mile. We had a look inside St Giles Cathedral, it's a very ornate building with lots of interesting stone carvings. Inside the Thistle Chapel it was even more so, lots of angels playing musical instruments with one even playing the bagpipes.
We continued walking down the Royal Mile, all the way to the bottom past the Scottish Parliament building, to Holyrood Palace. We didn't bother paying to go in for a look around, we just had a look and took a photo from outside like a lot of other tourists.
Instead of walking back up the Royal Mile, we walked up Calton Road, past the Calton Hill graveyard to the Saint James Shopping Centre. We still didn't have a lot of joy finding gifts for Christmas.
In the end, after being round the entire shopping centre, we gave up and had a quick look around St Andrew Square. They had set up a huge 'doughnut' ice rink with a bar in the middle for Christmas. There were lots of stalls selling food, drink and Christmas trinkets. It all seemed similar, just a bit more upmarket, to the Christmas Market in Princes Street Gardens.
We headed down to the bus station, right next door, to take the bus to Galashiels. It took an hour to get to outskirts of Edinburgh alone and then another 40 minutes to get to Galashiels. The bus passengers are no doubt eagerly awaiting the opening of the train service next year.
David's dad picked us up from Galashiels and drove us to Melrose where a nice homemade dinner was waiting for us. Spoilt or what?
We went round a few of the shops on Princess Street looking for Christmas gifts. The shopping was not as successful as we hoped. Edinburgh is not blessed with good shops for non-tourists and we were looking for useful and practical gifts, not just tartan for the sake of tartan. The good shops are in Glasgow, but we didn't have the time to go there.
We headed back to the old town and up to the top end of the Royal Mile, to Camera Obscura and World of Illusions. As well as having a camera obscura, it had 4 floors of visual illusions. We had 5 minutes to spare before the camera obscura show at 12pm so we wandered round the outdoor view points on the 5th floor of the building. It had great views of the city and the castle next door to us.
A camera obscura is basically a pinhole camera projecting the image reflected off a mirror (in this case, the mirror being on the roof of the building). It was a cloudy day, which is not really that unusual in Edinburgh at any time of the year, so there were no colors but once our eyes adjusted to the light the image was fine. Our guide told us how the camera worked and we were shown (more for the benefit of kids) how to "pick up" people on pieces of paper and drop them back on the ground. We were then given a 'guided tour' of the city from where we sat, with the landmarks being pointed out as we circled around.
After the show was over, we worked our way down through the four floors of interactive fun and illusions using light and mirrors, playing around like kids. Amongst others there was a mirror maze, morphing face machine and a skeleton that copied your movements.
The one that messed with your mind the most, or at least David's, was the 'Warp Tunnel'. It was a steel bridge of maybe 10m (30 foot) long, which had a cylinder of lights revolving around it. Sounds pretty tame, but it's not. David took two steps inside immediately feeling sick and being tipped upside down, which made him grab for left handrail with both hands as his knees buckled. Gingerly, he stood up, faced the end of tunnel and with a hand on each handrail he managed slow steps to the end. Once out of the tunnel everything was fine again. He did try it another couple of times to see if experience made any difference, it didn't - only closing your eyes seemed to.
With the fun and games behind us, we were back to the tourist trail on the Royal Mile. We had a look inside St Giles Cathedral, it's a very ornate building with lots of interesting stone carvings. Inside the Thistle Chapel it was even more so, lots of angels playing musical instruments with one even playing the bagpipes.
We continued walking down the Royal Mile, all the way to the bottom past the Scottish Parliament building, to Holyrood Palace. We didn't bother paying to go in for a look around, we just had a look and took a photo from outside like a lot of other tourists.
Instead of walking back up the Royal Mile, we walked up Calton Road, past the Calton Hill graveyard to the Saint James Shopping Centre. We still didn't have a lot of joy finding gifts for Christmas.
In the end, after being round the entire shopping centre, we gave up and had a quick look around St Andrew Square. They had set up a huge 'doughnut' ice rink with a bar in the middle for Christmas. There were lots of stalls selling food, drink and Christmas trinkets. It all seemed similar, just a bit more upmarket, to the Christmas Market in Princes Street Gardens.
We headed down to the bus station, right next door, to take the bus to Galashiels. It took an hour to get to outskirts of Edinburgh alone and then another 40 minutes to get to Galashiels. The bus passengers are no doubt eagerly awaiting the opening of the train service next year.
David's dad picked us up from Galashiels and drove us to Melrose where a nice homemade dinner was waiting for us. Spoilt or what?
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