Photo by Robin Lampert
The view from the park looking over the city. You can see how the poets and writers get ideas for their writings (including the Harry Potter series).
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After a wonderful cool sea day aboard Royal Princess from Le Havre, we anchored early in the morning in a firth or river outside of Edinburgh. The ship looked majestic from shore. We were about an hour's drive from the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, known for its, poets, authors and all the wonderful architecture, which was the inspiration for Hogwarts in the Harry Potter series.
The castles and museums are wonderful, and it's a city that you really need more than a day to explore. Edinburgh is known to be walking city with few vehicles. A recommendation for those who love history is to visit the festive Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo, held every year throughout August.
Photo by Robin Lampert
The view from the park looking over the city. You can see how the poets and writers get ideas for their writings (including the Harry Potter series).
Photo by Robin Lampert
As we came off the tender from the gorgeous Royal Princess, we were greeted by a Scottish tour guide in his family Tartan directing us to our tour buses. The tale that the Scots don't wear anything under their kilts is true, we were told.
Photo by Robin Lampert
Buildings and townhouses looking down toward the water, with many hiking areas in background. We encountered very little traffic and beautiful skies.
Photo by Robin Lampert
As all over the UK, you'll find "eyes" — what we call ferris wheels — overlooking the city. The architecture at the university is what Hogwarts in the Harry Potter movies was modeled after.
Photo by Robin Lampert
Throughout the city there were many churches of all denominations with old architecture, made of sandstone. We were told a story by our guide that after a wedding ceremony at the church, after the bride and groom kissed, the groomsmen turned around and mooned the attendees. It is apparently an old custom.
Photo by Robin Lampert
The green parkland and farm areas of Edinburgh were beautiful, despite the clouds overhead. The drive to the city of Edinburgh would take about an hour.
Photo by Robin Lampert
The largest park in Edinburgh is a hiking park. The steep hills are filled with hikers and bikers, and it's a few miles to get to the top . The scenery from the bottom and the top looking over the city to the water was magnificent.
Photo by Robin Lampert
There are many wonderful museums in Edinburgh — this was the largest and showed all the ancient ways things were built. There were children's classes going on and the area in the picture is the middle looking up to the glass top. Each floor represented a different age in the development of Edinburgh. It's a wonderful old museum not to be missed.
Photo by Robin Lampert
As you can see, Edinburgh is a walking city and the buildings are just so unusual. in the background you can see the water down the hill, which is what we passed to get to our tender port.
Photo by Robin Lampert
Meeting us at the university were bagpipers wearing the Tartan of their family.
