Botanic Gardens, Holyroodhouse and Mary King's Close

Since the weather was looking okay, I decided I'd make the first stop the Botanic Gardens. That kept me busy for a while. A couple of random pictures from the walk there first, though.

Okay, the actual garden.

The label said heather. Apparently it's supposed to have purple flowers, but maybe that's only in spring.

They have not one but two Andy Goldsworthy pieces. This is the first.

This the second.

Edinburgh has a lot of levels. This is a church right near my B&B, and the garden is so far below street level.

Next up: Holyroodhouse. Basically, where the Queen shacks up when she's in town.

There aren't any photos of the inside 'cause you aren't allowed to take any. The stuff was somewhat interesting, but nothing mindblowing (though there was some interesting stuff about Mary, Queen of Scots); however, they did have, for the Queen's 90th birthday celebrations, a collection of some of her more famous outfits. There were quite a lot of hats.

You can take pictures of the ruined abbey, though – so I did.

And the gardens.

I also went on a tour, called The Real Mary King's Close. You can't take any photos on that either, but it was very interesting. It takes you underneath some current buildings where the remains of dwellings going back to the 17th century still exist.

And that was pretty much my day.

Have I mentioned that European seagulls are huge? Well, they are. Australian gulls are tiny in comparison. Sadly, I don't think I managed to catch anything in the shot to provide scale.