2022 - A Trip to the United Kingdom
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The Hendersons 2022 - A Trip to the United Kingdom - Edinburgh |
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2022 - A Trip to the United Kingdom |
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4 August 2022 Thursday On the road for an experience we are looking forward to –
exploring the Falkirk Wheel. Neither Tom nor I can remember how we learned about
this engineering marvel, but we’ve been quite entranced with it. We had found
out quite by accident that there are tour boats that you can take. The boats are
lifted from ground level to the canal some 25 meters above. This is accomplished
through displacement. that is, the boat displaces water equal to its weight. It
is said that the amount of power to lift the boat is equal to that of heating
eight kettles of water. While the view from the boat was lovely, the interest
was more about the engineering. This is the only rotating boat lift in the
world, opened by the Queen in 2002. Before the wheel, narrow boats had to
navigate some 11 canals, which would take a full day to go just a few hundred
yards.
From there we drove to see the Kelpies. These are huge
metal statues of horses’ heads, said to be a tribute to the horses which towed
the boats on the canals, but also creatures from Scottish mythology, which are
said to be shape-shifting creatures, able to change shape as horses to that as
humans.
We drove to Linlithgow, just a short distance, checked into
our hotel, the Court, which was originally the courthouse for the town, built in
the mid 1850s, much later converted to hotel rooms. 5 August 2022 Friday Our first experience with an induction cook top. We had no
clue how to start it so went to reception and the very nice man, Jim, came to
our room to give us a lesson. We took the train to Edinburgh, originally planning to
spend most of the day, then go back to Linlithgow for dinner and a rest, then
back to Edinburgh for the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo. That turned out to be
impractical as we managed to hit Edinburgh when there was a fringe festival ,
whatever that is, a music festival and the Tattoo. The streets were nearly
impassable because of the crowds. We had a poor lunch in a café, went into the
cathedral, St. Giles, where John Knox turned Scotland Presbyterian. It isn’t a
beautiful cathedral, somewhat dank and gray. From there we went to the National Museum of Scotland, then
to the Scottish National Library, looking for refuge from the crowds. Afterwards we
had dinner at a pub on the Royal Mile. Our server was very kind and allowed us
to take time over fizzy water, dinner and wine. We still had time until the
Tattoo opened, so we went up to a pub recommended by Chris Cornwall, the Jolly
Judge. Because we had room at our table a Scottish couple joined us and we had a
delightful chat. I wish we had pubs in the USA, they are wonderful places to
meet people and socialize. We headed to the castle for the Tattoo. We’d been a bit
worried that it would be chilly, but we were pretty comfortable throughout the
performance. We didn’t know that there were troops from many different countries
participating. The opening was a massed Scottish drum and bagpipe, then a group
that was supposed to be Aztec. Other groups were Swiss, New Zealand, USA,
Mexican. Of course, the Scottish bagpipes were the hit.
After the performance, we trudged down the hill to the
train station and caught the last train to Linlithgow. After being out and about
for 14 hours we were beat.
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