A Castle and a Palace
I am already firmly in love with Scotland in general and Edinburgh in particular. We have made firm friends with our breakfast companion, who's visit is overlapping most of ours. A lovely man makes us coffee and breakfast every morning and we see our favourite waitress/bartender each evening. It is so easy to get around here and it doesn't matter where you go. In any direction we are surrounded by beauty, amazing architecture and history. Edinburgh is a very green city, with parks, gardens and trees everywhere. It has blended old and new beautifully. Across the street from Holyrood Palace, which began as a medieval abbey, there is an ultramodern, architecturally stunning government building. Behind both is an ancient volcanic cliff, Arthur's Seat, as in King Arthur of the Round Table. Tradition says that if young women climb it before dawn on May 1 and wash their faces with the dew from the grass, they are assured of beauty. (They aren't wrong - exercise and good skin ...