Travel journal entry June 2, 2012 or The Royal Mile before a reception

The hotel is quiet and the drapes are better for darkness. So we got to sleep a bit more, though it was a later night, so it still wasn’t enough sleep. Still dozed for a bit. Then up for breakfast, which was a huge selection. I didn’t like the eggs (too watery/too undercooked), so tomorrow no hot food. (Editor’s note: this was a common complaint of mine in Scotland. I like my eggs well-cooked, which we got in London, but Scotland tended to do theirs so it was wetter. Blech!)

Then it was off for walking and touring. We went to North Bridge and across to High Street. We visited the People’s Museum (cool!), the Edinburgh Museum (interesting!), then the Museum of Childhood (also very interesting!). We also checked out some shops – found some interesting gifts for Christmas and for ndie. We learned some new things. We stopped for lunch at a little café Pasta Fresca. D had a Parma ham and mozzarella cheese baguette and salad. I had chicken soup with part of a baguette.

Then we did the other side of the royal mile and saw the Tartan center. It was rather disappointing, but they had some great items at decent prices. Then it was down an extremely steep hill, over to New Town, where we walked and took more pictures, before heading back to the hotel. Next up – relaxing for a few minutes before our welcome reception with the Tour group.

The reception was interesting with an interesting selection of food. I had doubles on the lamb kebabs, warm pita with hummus, and the dessert. We met several people from our group – lots of Aussies! A few Americans and some Canadians, mostly from western Canada, but a couple from Toronto as well!

We ended up sitting and talking for a while in the courtyard. Then off to bed.