Freedom of Scotland, Day 3

On Sunday, we took a day off from trains to see the city of Edinburgh. The railway line runs east-west through the centre of Edinburgh, in a valley separating the Old Town, to the south, and the New Town, to the north. Our hotel was in the old town, just a few minutes walk from the railway station, so we walked across to the New Town to get some breakfast.

From there, we walked down to Princes Street Gardens, which line the side of the hill next to the railway line up to the New Town. We then crossed the railway line on a small footbridge, and walked back up the other side of the hill to Edinburgh Castle.

Edinburgh Castle, which sits high atop a hill on the south-west side of the city centre, was the royal residence of Scotland until the union of the crowns in 1603, and is still home to the Scottish Crown Jewels, including the Crown, Sword and Sceptre, and the Stone of Destiny (traditionally known as the Stone of Scone). The Castle is home to the oldest building in Edinburgh, the twelfth-century St Margaret's Chapel, as well as the Great Hall and the Royal Residences.

One of the more unusual buildings in the Castle is the Scottish National War Memorial, which was added in 1927; the memorial is not merely a simple statue or pillar, but an entire cathedral-like building, with more than a dozen wall-sized plaques to each of the battalions in Scotland who suffered losses in World War I.

In the centre is a metal casket, presented by King George V, a sealed container with a roll of honour with all 140,000 names; each of the plaques also had an associated book containing the roll of honour for that battalion. One of the panels had quotation of Thucydides, which I particularly liked:

"The whole earth is the tomb of heroic men, and their story is not graven only on stone over their clay, but abides everywhere without visible symbol woven into the stuff of other men's lives."

After having some lunch, we headed back down into the Old Town, where we took an open-top tour bus round the city; we did slightly more than the full loop in order to end up near our hotel. The tour took us past Arthur's Seat, the Scottish Parliament building, and the statue of Greyfriars Bobby.

We spent the rest of the evening relaxing in the hotel, before heading out for dinner at Pizza Express, and retiring ready for a long day on trains on Monday.