Edinburgh

In Edinburgh we stayed in our first Airbnb place - Carrie's flat in Leith. It was very cool - lots of hip prints and funky found objects, so we fitted in perfectly. The night we arrived we wandered around the corner to the Black Fox bar, where we reverted to Canberran type and played yahtzee, to the slight bemusement of the staff.  

The next morning we woke to discover that Carrie's flat had fantastic views over Calton Hill and Arthur's Seat and that it was only 20 minutes walk to Holyrood Palace.

We toured the palace's state rooms. Thomas was particularly taken by the story of Mary, Queen of Scots and her perfidious / not very bright husband, Lord Darnley.

We had morning tea at the palace (Victoria Sponge, of course) and then headed up the Royal Mile past a never-ending line of shops selling tartan scarves to collect our tickets for the Hogmanay parade this evening. 

Finding that the line to collect tickets was a block long, we split up, with Thomas and Robert heading to the Museum of Scotland for 'Sprogmanay' activities while Helen queued. Thomas enjoyed a science show at the museum and then we all wandered through the ancient Scots exhibits for a while. A sharp ebbing of energy sent us to the museum cafe for soup and sandwiches before we went to the roof terrace to work out where everything was in relation to everything else.

Geography sorted, we headed back downstairs and ran smack into a troup of very noisy Vikings.

It was starting to get quite dark, so we went to St Giles' square to collect our torch for the parade and then strolled up the last stretch of the Royal Mile to the Castle.

With time to kill before the parade, we took refuge in a Patiserie Valerie (a chain we have been seeing a lot) along with a crowd of other people clutching torches. At 5:30 we wandered out into the street and joined the queue of parade participants being marshalled on King George IV bridge. After what seemed like an age but was probably about a hour, we saw the first torches being lit at the top end of the bridge. The line of flame slowly crept down the street towards us as people shared their flames. 

The procession was a wonderful experience. Thomas did most of our torch bearing and the dramatic geography of Edinburgh meant we got great views of the river of fire as we (and approximately 75,000 other people, a surprising number of whom appeared to be Australian) walked steadilly to Calton Hill. At the top of the hill was a huge bonfire which laughed in the face of health and safety, a fireworks display made thrilling by the fact that it was launched from about 20 metres in front of us and a pipe band.  At 9:00pm we wandered down the hill and back to our apartment in Leith tired, wax spattered and very happy.