Edinburgh Royal Botanic Gardens

If Edinburgh Uni is out of session  you can grab a dorm room with the biggest breakfast buffet in Scotland for short money.

Sitting just at the feet of Salisbury Crag & Arthur’s Seat and about 1 1/2 miles to Waverley, It’s been a repeat stay.

Strolling the Royal Mile

St. Giles

Nearly” had to cut a path through a wall of human flesh with my bowie knife” (WC Fields)

Nice church to catch a breather.

Interesting set up for this mime.

In 1617 Thomas Gledstanes bought this 67 year old building.  The sign was added much later and displays the date 1617 and a gilt-copper hawk with outstretched wings. Although not an original feature, the significance of this is that the name “Gledstanes” is derived from the Scots word “gled” meaning a hawk.

 

Alexander the Great as a young boy tamed the horse, Buchephalus

A Cresent

It is a special week when one gets to spent time in both Glasgow & Edinburgh Botanics

If I had property I would like to grow a Giant Gunnera like above, a Monkey Puzzle and a Cordyline australis palm trees like one sees on the coast of villages like Plockton (it was the palms that first attracted me to the village although they are not true palms but cold weather sustainable plants from New Zealand).

If I can find any seeds that might end up in my kit to try back in New England

And the seed pods of the Gunnera should be ready in autumn

Just a wee castle on a hill

It was muggy and I’ve been inside the greenhouse before but I chose to skip it today fearing I’d be a sweat mess upon exiting

Some interesting buildings on the way back, like the National Portrait Gallery

And again the tallest monument in the world honoring a writer, covered with the soot of the ages, the Walter Scott Monument.

On a clear day the view from Nelson’s column of the city is grand. I was up there last year.  On a clear day!

Arguably the greatest fiction writer of the late 18th & early 19th century