Portobello to Prestonpans

Today I headed east from my overnight stop at Portobello, a coastal suburb of Edinburgh, to the fishing town of Prestonpans. With the twists and turns of my route it worked out roughly at an 8 mile walk, taking in the sights of Musselburgh and Prestongrange along the way. I rarely deviated from my route, so I can be sure that there will be plenty I have missed, but it was a wonderfully refreshing walk with a few surprises along the way.

The starting point for my walk, Portobello, is one of the many seaside resorts around the country that became incredibly popular in the late 19th century and then gradually faded through the 20th century. Originally a town in its own right, it was officially absorbed into Edinburgh in 1895. A walk around the town reveals no shortage of grand buildings, such as the octagonal castellated tower (1785) in Figgate Lane, the Scottish baronial styled Police station (1877) and the Portobello Public Baths (1901).

One of the three Coade pillars at Portobello

My eye was particularly drawn to three pillars that were rescued from the garden of Argyle House in 1989 and re-erected in Portobello Community Garden in 2006 after a campaign by the Portobello Amenity Society. The pillars are not carved but instead made of press-moulded blocks of Coade Stone. The origins of the pillars are something of a mystery, but the two smaller pillars are identical to those on the chimneys of Dalmeny House.

Onward along the coast, through Joppa, and on to Musselburgh, which the signs proclaim as ‘The Honest Toun’ on account of the townsfolk’s care for Thomas Randolph, 1st Earl of Moray and regent for David II of Scotland, as he lay dying in a safe-house in 1332. The townsfolk wanted no recompense for their efforts, leading to his nephew, Domhnall II, the new regent to proclaim the town as honest. Sadly, Domhnall only outlived his uncle by 22 days – meeting his end at the Battle of Dupplin Moor.

The most striking sight on walking into the town was ‘The Mussel’, a 12 foot tall stainless steel sculpture of a mussel shell, installed in 2018. A little further on I reached Fisherrow Harbour, mainly filled with leisure boats from what I could see as I passed by. The super display boards installed by the Fisherrow Waterfront Group explain that this was once a bustling sea port, playing a vital role in the export of the goods produced locally (coal, clay, bricks, salt, animal hides and oats) and with a thriving fishing community.

I loved the clever sculptures of fishermen installed by the Fisherrow Waterfront Group that double as traffic bollards, though they do look a little like Davros sitting in his mobile life-support system!

Anyway, on I went – along the waterfront, round the outside of the Loretto School playing fields (noting the WW2 air raid shelter constructed next to the clubhouse), across the River Esk and past the home of 297 Musselburgh Squadron, RAF Air Cadets.

The concrete arrow restored by 297 Musselburgh Squadron, RAF Air Cadets

I was fascinated to see the concrete arrow that the cadets of 297 Squadron have renovated in recognition of its original purpose of training bomber crews to line their aircraft up with a target in the Firth of Forth. It’s one of only a small number of concrete arrows still surviving around the UK (other examples can be found at Portrush, Northern Ireland; Maypole, Isles of Scilly and Putsborough, Devon).

As I continued, I had some terrific view of the bird-filled Fisherrow Sands before continuing on towards Morrison’s Haven, just a little beyond the Musselburgh Ash Lagoons. The next stop, at the open air museum at Prestongrange was undoubtedly the highlight of my day.

Prestongrange was at the heart of Scotland’s industrial revolution. Coal had been mined here for hundreds of years but as the revolution accelerated an integrated industrial complex grew up, quite unlike anything that had been seen before in Scotland.

It’s hard to grasp the scale of the operations here as nature has reclaimed much of the surroundings, but at its peak 1,000 men worked on the site and an extensive railway system connected the complex with the east coast main line and the nearby harbour. The Hoffman continuous Kiln on the site was capable of producing 30,000 bricks in a single firing. The tranquil ruins of today couldn’t be farther from the noisy, smelly and dirty site at its peak.

Today, you can wander round and see a pithead winding engine; a beam engine (built in Plymouth in 1853 and used until 1954); the outlines of a dozen beehive kilns; the Hoffman continuous Kiln (built in 1937) and chimney (built 1910); one of the headframes from the colliery; a ventilation fan and shaft sinking engine; an assortment of railway wagons; and a rail mounted steam crane. The visitor centre on the site really helps to bring the story together.

The Cornish beam engine at Prestongrange

Although I had intended to continue along the coast a bit further, I hadn’t counted on a half-marathon taking place on the same roads. To get around the route, I took a back road up to Preston Tower, Hamilton House and the mining memorial ‘The Shrine’ before ending my walk at an old coal bing shaped into a pyramid in the 1960s to create a viewpoint over the Prestonpans battlefield.

I thought I had done my homework before setting off, but regret not getting to see the murals of Prestonpans or the museum dedicated to Scotland’s first railway, the 1722 Tranent – Cockenzie Waggonway. I’ll have to remedy that the next time I am in the area!

If you are thinking of walking this stretch of coast then it’s worth checking out the super series of leaflets from East Lothian Council. If you are just walking with a map, there are plenty of terrific information panels along this route that really helped to bring this walk to life.

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Back to the bedroom-office!

Our summer trip fizzled out today, our 13th day in Scotland. We scratched our heads over a forecast of heavy rain all day in Edinburgh and the Borders, plus a warning from the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) about the risk of flash flooding and potential disruption to transport networks. The threat was brought home to us by the images of people wading along Princes Street and the flooded tracks at Haymarket just a day or so back.

Not feeling like we could risk getting stranded in the Borders on the day we travel home, we played it safe and switched to some rather aimless wandering round Edinburgh – only to see barely a drop of rain fall all day. Grrr! It was a somewhat frustrating way to end the trip, but think we were quite lucky overall in what seems to be a summer of unpredictable and unexpected weather.

Sunset at North Berwick

It’s going to be hard swapping the beautiful landscapes of Scotland for the four walls of my bedroom-office, but hopefully we have some more normal times coming our way soon and with any luck we’ll get away for some shorter breaks around the British Isles as the year gets on. At this stage I am not expecting to venture overseas for the first time in over 20 years, but if this trip is anything to go by – it will be great!

Edinburgh and beyond

Our time in Scotland is fast drawing to a close. I’ve covered most of the trip, but not talked about what we’ve managed to do whilst staying in the Scottish capital. I’ve been to Edinburgh a fair bit, so I have seen most of the major sights many times times over, but there is always something fresh (like the super new AV device allowing visitors to see Holyroodhouse Palace in a completely different way).

The Galloway Hoard

One highlight was the free exhibition about the Galloway Hoard at the National Museum of Scotland (on until 12th September 2021). The exhibition did a super job of walking you through the unique nature of the hoard and surprising discoveries it contained, explaining how this was forcing a rethink of the Viking world. Nothing short of spellbinding from start to finish.

During our stay we made a few day trips that are worth mentioning. First up, we made the trip out to Rosslyn chapel, an extraordinary building constructed between 1446 and 1484, which takes around 45-60 minutes to reach on the number 37 bus from central Edinburgh.

The Rosslyn Chapel features remarkably ornate interior decoration including around one hundred green men and an exquisitely carved column (the apprentice pillar) around which an unlikely tale of a master murdering his apprentice has grown up over the centuries. As extraordinary as this building is, it was only a small part of the original plan to build a much larger church. The mind boggles at the thought of what that might have looked like!

Another bus ride from the city centre (30 minutes on the X27) brought us to Jupiter Artland, a wonderful sculpture park which includes works by Anish Kapoor and Antony Gormley among others. The green Cells of Life by landscape architect Charles Jencks create quite an impact as you enter but there are plenty of smaller treats, of which the small frog fountain was a delight. We spent a good three hours wandering around the exhibits.

The Kelpies

Finally, we took a train out to Falkirk and tackled a circular walk that took us to the Kelpies, Helix Park, Callendar House, along the Union Canal and on to the Falkirk Wheel. The 30-metre-high horse-head sculptures, the Kelpies, by Andy Scott are extraordinary. Pictures really don’t do them justice. It’s worth saying that the Helix Park the Kelpies are set in is absolutely gorgeous too.

It would be easy to overlook Callendar House with the much publicised newer sights in Falkirk, but this mansion (a fusion of a French Renaissance château with Scottish baronial architecture) is worth taking the time over. Inside, there is an excellent exhibition taking you through the history of the house and the surrounding area, along with some surprising facts including Irn-Bru’s true origins in Falkirk.

I was glad to finally see the Falkirk Wheel, ten years after reading about it at a museum in Arques, though there’s not a lot more to it once you’ve seen one revolution. The complex looks a terrific place for families with fun activities like a Falkirk themed mini golf course. My feet were absolutely trashed by this point (the effects of far too little walking under lockdown) so I regret to say we never made it to the remains of the nearby Roman fort.

The Falkirk Wheel

One recommendation on the food front would be Taisteal who served up a superb 7 course tasting menu featuring duck, octopus and lobster with a fun set of matching drinks ranging from a rice beer to a margarita. My better half reckoned that it was one of the best tasting menus we have tasted anywhere. It was also fun to try the themed tasting menu at Six by Nico and sample an Irn-Bru milkshake at Byron too (only available at Scottish restaurants).

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Summer break

Our travels have brought us to Scotland for a much needed summer break. I like planning and researching trips, but this one has been tricky to arrange with plenty of schedule changes, cancellations and unanticipated complications like the strikes affecting Sunday services on ScotRail. In the end we have somehow managed to re-plan and patch up the itinerary to keep it together, even if it doesn’t always make perfect sense.

The original plan was to split the majority of our time between Dundee, Falkirk and North Berwick but the trip has become much more Edinburgh centric to overcome some of the scheduling difficulties. It was not all bad news though. We were able to take advantage of some unusually affordable pricing to spend a night at The Caledonian at the beginning of our trip and even luckier to get upgraded to a castle view.

Waldorf Astoria Edinburgh – The Caledonian

The Caledonian is an incredibly grand hotel (far too grand for the likes of us) that was originally built in 1899 as a railway hotel above the entrance to Princes Street station (1870-1965). It’s a striking building in red sandstone that has become one of Edinburgh’s iconic buildings. Many of the rooms offer astonishing views across to St Cuthbert’s Church and the castle beyond.

It was wonderful to see that the owners of the hotel celibrate its railway heritage, which extends far beyond the grand three-arched entrance and preserved cast iron station gates on Rutland Street. On the walls inside you will find architectural prints celebrating the design of the building and stained glass windows from the station platforms depicting the Caledonian Railway coat of arms.

The hotel lounge was originally part of the concourse and you can see historic photographs that match up exactly to the space (albeit with a high ceiling rather than a glass roof above). On one wall the hotel have framed the face of the station’s original clock, a survivor of the fire in 1890, which was set to run five minutes fast to make it less likely that passengers would miss their trains!

Room with a view

A few decades ago I stayed in another railway hotel built by the Caledonian Railway, at Glasgow Central railway station, in one of the small converted rooms for servants built into the rooftop. Needless to say that was a very different experience. It felt like the Central Hotel had not seen much modification over the years, but I gather that it has been through a couple of renovations since I stayed and is probably quite unrecognisable now.

I’m not sure that I’m really cut out for five star grandeur and the impressive level of service on offer, but as a railway enthusiast it was lovely to spend one night at The Caledonian before moving on.

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A fortified line in the Firth of Forth

One of the more unusual sights in Scotland can be found at Cramond, thirty minutes by bus from Edinburgh. A short walk through the picturesque village brings you to the shore and the striking sight of a line of 3 metre tall concrete pylons stretching for a mile across the Forth to Cramond Island. In the Second World War this was part of a defensive line in the estuary, helping to protect the naval dockyard at Rosyth.

The striking sight of the concrete pillars that make up the defensive line at Cramond

The concrete pylons and the interlocking concrete barriers that slotted between them were designed to stop torpedo boats from passing between the island and the mainland at high tide. At the end of the line sits Cramond Island, which was initially fortified in the First World War and then strengthened in the Second World War. A submarine boom could be extended from the northern tip of the island across the Forth to Inchcolm Island. Beyond Cramond Island you can see the much more heavily fortified island of Inchmickery.

The walk along the causeway next to the pillars at low tide takes around 15-20 minutes and brings you to ‘the Knoll’ on the southern tip of the island where you can find the remains of a 75mm gun emplacement and searchlight station. It’s all covered in graffiti at the moment and clearly not maintained but don’t let that put you off.

A loop around the island takes roughly an hour with splendid views back to the mainland from the summit. Other sights to be discovered include the remains of a farmhouse; the ruins of a shelter used by duck and rabbit shooting parties; the remains of a pier used for supplies; and a handful of buildings and circular gun emplacements from the battery in the north of the island.

From my pre-trip research I had understood that this was one of those places off the mainstream tourist trail and more likely to be visited by those with a bit of local knowledge. However, this was where I encountered the most international tourists on my three day stay (if the assortment of languages was anything to go by) so that was clearly way off beam.

The view from the summit back to the mainland

A display board at the shoreline indicates the safe window to walk out to the island with a plea not to tie up the emergency services at this difficult time. I made the walk along the causeway twice at low tide and was struck by how quickly the water had come back in over the stretch of a couple of hours. I was not surprised to hear that the RNLI often have to rescue stranded walkers.

The Cramond Association have a series of rather splendid leaflets that explain the historic sights to be seen on a walk around Cramond village and over to the island which was most helpful in getting the most out of my visit.

If you visit Arthur’s Seat during your stay don’t forget to look for Cramond island which is clearly visible from the summit.

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Three days in Edinburgh

A stay in Edinburgh during August is usually ruinously expensive, but not on this occasion. The usual draws of the Edinburgh Fringe and Edinburgh Tattoo are taking place virtually this year so the city was a lot quieter, with fewer tourists around. I took the opportunity of a long weekend to re-visit a few favourite spots and discover some interesting locations beyond the city.

Salisbury Crags and Edinburgh city centre

In spite of its outwardly historic appearance the city has changed quite a bit since my first visit in April 1997 and more change is on its way. A walk to take in the view at sunrise from Calton Hill revealed a series of cranes, construction sites and demolition taking place across the city. My hotel itself is one of many with a historic facade but a modern building behind. However, not everything has been spruced up.

I was amused to see that my hotel room presented me with a view of the first club I ended up in 23 years ago. It has somehow managed the feat of looking as dingy today as it did all those years ago. On that trip I was staying with some friends from Edinburgh Uni in their student digs in Clerk Street, tucked up in a sleeping bag. My room this time was rather more comfortable but probably a bit less fun. I won’t miss the hangover though!

There is plenty that I haven’t seen, in spite of this being my eighth trip to the city, but many of the places on my list (such as Gladstone’s Land) are understandably closed with their spaces not lending themselves easily to social distancing. However, there was still plenty to see and do.

Arthur’s Seat

The climb to the top of Arthur’s Seat, an extinct volcano, offers an incredible reward for a relatively short hike to the summit at 251 metres above sea level. The first time I came up here 23 years ago I had no idea what to expect and was absolutely overwhelmed by the stunning vista of the sprawling city and the estuary beyond. My original guide had said that he climbed up there whenever he had a problem and that these usually seemed insignificant when faced with all this.

Summit marker at Arthur’s Seat

The first time up I took the steeper route, scrambling up the rocky face, but this time I settled on the easier route from the Holyrood car park and still found that somewhat tiring (only a little of which I can ascribe to months in lockdown). I started my climb at sunrise, noting that there was only a brief chance of a break in the clouds and was rewarded with the sight of the fingers of god over the estuary and a burst of sunlight illuminating the city. The view doesn’t get any less impressive on a repeat visit, nor does it get any less windy at the top.

Only a handful of walkers made it up to the top at such an early hour, including one local chap making the ascent as his morning walk before going home to cook breakfast. As I was coming down I could see many more heading up.

Salisbury Crags

After climbing to Arthur’s Seat I took a walk along the top of Salisbury Crags to take in the ‘nearer’ view from there.

It was certainly easier than the first time I did this walk. On that occasion we got caught in a sudden and rather heavy hailstorm with no shelter. We tried to protect our faces with our coats and arms to no avail. My friend Mike had the idea of getting off the top quickly, stumbling and sliding down one of the steeper slopes which left us covered in grass but spared us any more of the pain!

Atop the Salisbury Crags

I was impressed once again at how quickly you can gain some height and get such a terrific view from the crags. One thing to note is that the radical road, which runs halfway up the side of the 151 feet Salisbury Crags, is currently closed due to the continuing risk of falling rocks. A sign at the start of the path explains that the largest of the rocks was the size of a smart car and that many of the rocks are the size of fridge freezers!

Royal Yacht Britannia

A visit to the Royal Yacht Britannia was not in my original plans, but provided a useful back up option in the face of a fairly wet forecast for the day. It proved far more fascinating than I would have expected, perhaps more accurately described as a floating country house than a pleasure ship. It’s a strange set-up, as you enter the ship via a shopping mall so you don’t really get a good view of the vessel at any point. However, once you are on-board the story of the ship and its unusual interior is completely captivating.

Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art

The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art is located a pleasant 20 minute walk from the western end of Princes Street but somehow I have never thought to visit. As luck would have it my visit coincided with the re-opening of the gallery from lockdown.

Entry is free but timed tickets now have to be pre-booked. I would have to say that the measures that they have put in place here are the best I have seen anywhere – the queue to get in is carefully marked to keep social distancing, individuals/groups are called forward one at a time to get tickets scanned, a one way system keeps everyone moving without tripping over each other and the numbers on my visit meant keeping far enough apart was never an issue.

Cast iron figure by Antony Gormley buried outside Modern One

Anyway, enough about the Covid-19 precautions. The gallery holds some marvelous pieces, with a surprisingly strong collection of world class surrealist art. The gallery holds many pieces collected by Roland Penrose, who took an early interest in surrealist art and became friends with Max Ernst and other members of the surrealist group. Among these is the extra-ordinary jungle painting ‘La joie de vivre‘ by Max Ernst (1936), which Penrose purchased in 1935 before it was even finished.

One of the most surprising finds in the gallery was the work ‘Between Kilburn and Willeseden Green, Winter Evening‘ by Leon Kossof (1992). Of all the things to see in the gallery, I least expected to see an image of suburban diesel and electric trains in London. It’s a really striking painting that captures the movement within its thick strokes of paint. I thought it was wonderful.

Other highlights for me included ‘The young card players’ by Anne Finlay (c.1938); ‘Christ delivered to the people‘ by Stanley Spencer (1950); ‘Oiseau‘ by Salvador Dali (1928); ‘Le drapeau noir‘ by Rene Magritte (1937) and ‘Lobster telephone‘ by Salvador Dali/Edward James (1938). There’s also a rather splendid exhibition by Katie Paterson which muses on our place in time and space, including a striking self-playing piano performance of the Moonlight Sonata modified by reflection off the surface of the moon.

Master of the Universe by Eduardo Paolozzi in the grounds of Modern Two

On top of these sights in Edinburgh, I planned day trips to North Berwick (around 30 minutes by train from Edinburgh Waverley) and Cramond (around 30 minutes by bus from Princes Street).

The trip was immensely enjoyable. In an era of more complex international travel arrangements it was a pleasure to head north to Edinburgh without having to worry about the shifting sands of quarantine regulations or whether an international travel corridor was about to close. The extraordinary architecture and scenery never fails to impress. Having been reminded of that I started plotting my next trip to Edinburgh before this one had finished.

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Castled out

Our four day trip to Scotland finished with a visit to a castle…

The last time I visited Edinburgh Castle, around ten years ago, it was a cold winter’s day and I virtually had the place to myself. Today was quite the opposite, with crowds filling all the spaces within the castle. It was hard to imagine what this place must be lucky on a busy summer’s day when the numbers increase by half as much again. I certainly don’t want to gain first hand experience of that!

Edinburgh Castle

I never tire of seeing the Scottish National War Memorial, which is a beautiful space originally opened in 1927 as a commemoration of the lives of Scottish soldiers and soldiers in Scottish regiments who died in the First World War. The sight of Archangel Michael hanging over the casket holding the roll of honour in the shrine always takes my breath away. It is a wonderful symbol of hope for mankind amidst the terrible record of the lives lost through war.

Since my last visit an exhibition (‘Prisons of War’) has opened which re-creates the conditions that American prisoners would have experienced in the stone vaults on 27th June 1781. It is wonderfully atmospheric and the snatches of conversation played around you give a good feel for the frustrations of life here. The associated exhibition space displays some remarkable doors which hold the scratched graffiti of the prisoners, including images of ships that they had served on.

Prisons of War

Our visit to the castle more or less ended with the daily firing of the One o’clock gun. The gun is fired at the same time each day, although it has long since lost its purpose of providing ships in the Firth of Forth with a time signal to set their clocks by! A 105mm field gun is used to create the signal and you certainly can’t miss it wherever you are in Edinburgh. Unusually, today’s firing was being filmed as part of a Visit Scotland golf promotion – a soldier with a golf club took a swing followed seconds later by the firing of the gun. All very impressive.

Edinburgh Castle is an amazing place to visit and once again we found that it is easy to underestimate the time that you need to take to explore the site. We easily spent a good three and a half hours wandering around but will still need to come back to do justice to the National War Museum which deserves a good hour or two in itself to appreciate fully.

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Craigmillar to Calton Hill

Another day, another castle! Today’s castle was at Craigmillar, in the south-eastern suburbs of Edinburgh. At one time the castle was a rural retreat, close enough to the city to be accessible but sufficiently set apart to offer Mary Queen of Scots some respite from bloody 16th century politics.

As the bus timetables suggested we had a bit of a wait, we decided to take a walk to the castle. Although we probably didn’t gain anything from this, it offered an interesting stroll out of the city centre and took about an hour. It made it all the more apparent that the castle sits amidst a sea of urban clutter, though the final section of the walk takes you into Craigmillar Country Park which goes some way towards preserving the illusion of the castle as a rural retreat.

The castle itself is a fascinating and handsome sight, having progressed from the earliest phases of construction in the 14th century to become a more complex residence in the 16th century, before finally being reduced to a romantic ruin by the late 18th century. After taking a good look round we opted to take the bus (from the nearby Royal Infirmary at Little France) back into town.

St Andrew’s House and Calton Hill

The afternoon saw us take a somewhat haphazard walk around Edinburgh, incorporating the Royal Mile and the annual exhibition at the Royal Scottish Academy (including a rather remarkable sculpture of a cheetah made from hundreds of wire coat hangers, entitled Spike). Finally, we made it to Calton Hill, which has to be one of my favourite spots in Edinburgh along with the nearby volcanic peak of Arthur’s Seat.

Calton Hill was one of the first public parks in the country. The philosopher David Hume was influential in persuading the council to build a walk ‘for the health and amusement of the inhabitants’ which you can still take today. The eclectic mix of buildings at the top is part of its appeal to me – including the National Monument of Scotland (modelled on the Parthenon), the Nelson Monument and the Dugald Stewart Monument (modelled on the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates).

The Dugald Stewart Monument on Calton Hill

The sights of Calton Hill looked as magnificent as ever in the afternoon sun, though that didn’t stop me coming back at sunset (around 10pm) to join a string of photographers trying to grab that perfect shot of the city as the light died. It was never going to be a particularly original shot, but it was fun all the same!

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Sleeper to Scotland

Travelling across town to Euston as midnight approached seemed more than a little strange, but once you are on board the Caledonian Sleeper all such thoughts disappear. The simplicity of falling asleep in London and waking up in Edinburgh on a bright sunny morning was enough to persuade me that this was the perfect way to start a four day trip to Scotland.

Our destination: Sunny Scotland

The two berth cabins on the Caledonian Sleeper are certainly cosier than those of many sleeper trains that I have travelled on, but the comfortable bedding and convenience of a flip-up wash basin certainly make this a great way to maximise the time at your destination.

The special ingredient on top of this arrangement were the charming hosts that greet you on your arrival at the carriage door and then do everything they can to make your journey work as smoothly as it should. The hosts help get you familiarised with the quirks of cabin life and stay on hand through the night if you need to get back after an early morning in the lounge car (it was reassuring to know that we could leave our baggage securely locked in our cabin if we wanted, though in practice we opted for sleep).

Our train arrived at Edinburgh Waverly on schedule at 7:22 in the morning, though you can remain in your berth until 7:45 which was sufficient to allow for a leisurely start. Coffee and shortbread had been delivered about half an hour before our arrival, so I felt surprisingly alert – though I wasn’t sure my sleepy cabin companion shared the same sentiments!

Linlithgow Cross and Burgh Halls

Within the hour we were on our way again, travelling the short distance to Linlithgow by a local ScotRail service (around 20 minutes away). Linlithgow is most famous for the magnificent ruins of Linlithgow Palace, the birthplace of Mary Queen of Scots, though in truth the whole town was a delight with its historic streetscape and plethora of interesting buildings.

The Linlithgow Heritage Trail provides a handy guide to the local sights which we haphazardly followed. The most striking of the sights was Linlithgow Cross Well, which is an early nineteenth century replica of a much earlier well which had been destroyed during the occupation of the town by Oliver Cromwell’s forces in the 1650s. A short walk up from the cross brought us to the sixteenth century Palace gatehouse.

Linlithgow Palace

The setting for Linlithgow Palace is stunning. The Palace is beautifully complemented by the waters of Linlithgow Loch and the lusciously green park of Linlithgow Peel. The waters seemed like an oasis of calm with a few boats peacefully settled for a spot of fishing, apart from the occasional squawking of the loch’s swans to break the peace!

The interior of the Palace is a wonderful, and sometimes bewildering, space to wander around. It is hard to visualise just how grand the rooms would have been in their time, but occasionally small traces of surviving ornamentation give you a clue – such as a unicorn carved into the ceiling of one room. The highlight of the visit was, without any doubt, the ornate King’s Fountain which sits in the middle of the courtyard. The fountain was commissioned by James V in 1537 and is believed to be the oldest surviving fountain in the United Kingdom. It was restored by Historic Scotland and continues to function to this day (although not on the day that we visited).

A pigeon joins the menagerie on the King’s Fountain

After completing our tour of the Palace we visited the neighbouring medieval church of St Michael’s which holds its own place in history. Mary Queen of Scots was baptised in the font at the church, although this – and all bar one of the statues in the church – did not survive the Scottish reformation. The church is hard to miss today with an unusual aluminium spire that was added in the 1960s.

The final stop on our visit was the Old Post Office (1904) which has been converted to a pub. The building caught our eye from the outset and proved to be a good place to stop for refreshment before travelling onward.

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Edinburgh in the springtime

I got back into Edinburgh just after midday and had just under two hours for a wander. I visited the Scott monument for the first time (it had never been open on any of my previous visits to Edinburgh many years ago as it was undergoing restoration at the time) and then around the gardens. It is hard not to be seduced by the view up to the castle, particularly with a carpet of daffodils in bloom before it and I had a few attempts at catching that on camera. I had a pleasant wander around and then boarded the 13:50 ScotRail service to Inverness.

The shadow of the Scott monument falls on Princes Street

The view from the Scott monument – Calton Hill to Arthur’s Seat

An eagle looks out from the Scott monument

A carpet of daffodils leads up to Edinburgh Castle

Edinburgh in the spring

Underneath the walls of Edinburgh Castle