Sunday in Edinburgh

Now if how one feels on a Sunday morning is inverselly proportionate to how much you enjoyed Saturday night, then I had a great Saturday night. but it was  beautiful day and I felt a duty to do some sightseeing, so off I went up Calton Hill. This basically has a series of monuments to various Scots, plus an observatory. It just looks really good, from afar and close up. And luckily for my hangover, its not too steep a climb. I'll let the pictures do the talking.

From the hill I then aimed for the New Town, first diverting into the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. The Scots don't seem to have quite got the idea of a portrait gallery in that it doesn't exclusively contain portraits. Having said that its diversion into for example a gallery of sporting paintings does make it a more entertaining visit so I would hardly hold that against them. And a lovely 19th century decorated hallway/atrium is the real highlight of this place, with its mural of famous Scots all round the room.

Then on through the New Town. This is the opposite of the Medieval, organic Old Town. This was planned, straight streets with posh squares at either end, a great piece of Georgian architecture and town planning. A genuinely beautiful version of high density housing. Modern planners take note. The Scottish National Trust own one such house and present it very well although the room attendants are rather over exuberant. They don't risk you failing to ask a question. They are in telling you all about anything interesting (or less than interesting) in their rooms.

Contrast the old town, more organic, romantic with lots of little side alleys coming off the spine of the Royal Mile.

Now, people talk about the New Town and the Old Town as if they are the two parts of Edinburgh. But there is a third part, Dean village, once an industrial area bit now an ever so atractive little village down by the river. The river walk is known as the Water of Leith and its a beautiful walk on a sunny day. And this was sunny day.

If one pops up from the river at the right point (which I didn't quite manage at my first attempt) one coes up at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. A fairly impressive collection in an impressive mansion. Actually its across two mansions.