Edinburgh, Newcastle and the trip to London

Edinburgh

Breakfast in our Georgian styled farmhouse B&B was a refined affair seated at an antique dining table with white linen, silver cutlery and fine bone china. The food wasn’t half bad either!
After breakfast we took a short drive to the Park n Ride and then zipped into to town on the bus. This was really good value, free parking and a day pass on the buses (anywhere in Edinburgh).

Our first stop was Edinburgh Castle (oh no not another castle) and I would have to say it was the highlight of our day. Neither of us expected the walled town that is the castle or the layer upon layer of history and then there was the Scottish Crown Jewels! The exhibition that houses these and tells their history is quite spectacular.

After the Castle we visited the Tartan Weaving place, the Camera Obscura, Holyrood Palace (oh no not another castle) and gardens, Newhaven and the Britannia. By the time we got back on the bus at the Britannia we were well and truly tired and after a less than memorable Chinese meal (We wanted to eat something different than a pub meal and we thought Chinese would do it.) we trundled back to our B&B and bed.

Edinburgh is a really interest and bustling city but like the other bits of Scotland and Ireland we have seen the signs of the economic downturn are everywhere. Entire buildings empty and for let, empty and boarded up shops, half finished housing estates and big queues at job centres. This was the first place we have been were the homeless and beggars were obvious and numerous. Despite this there were tourists everywhere.

Good news our camera seems to be working again so we may be able to post some photos soon (Oops spoke too soon camera on blink again).

Edinburgh to Newcastle

A fine day greeted us and following yet another sumptuous cooked breakfast we set out for Newcastle. Our nice black car was covered by a very fine coat of volcanic ash but more about that later. We decided to travel via Lauder to see where Grandad’s mother (Cockburn) came from. Lauder is a delightful little village, set in the midst of green rolling hills and obviously relatively affluent. The whole drive through the Borders was lovely and we kept off the motorway and travelled on A roads.

Our first stop in Newcastle was the railway station where we had a forgettable lunch and booked our train ticket to London. We got a cheap 1st class fare (cheaper than a standard seat, go figure) so we are off to London at 9:30am tomorrow (Sunday).

Once again Jeeves proved his worth by guiding us through Newcastle and out to our hotel at Gateshead Metrocentre. After checking in we dropped the rental car off at Newcastle Airport. The Airport carpark was all but empty, there were 30 – 40 planes parked up near the terminal and the terminal building was empty save a bookstore attendant and our Avis person. There is something really sad about an empty airport. We bought some books at the bookstore, we were their biggest sale of the day. The young shop assistant had been there for 10 hours and had taken a total of 80 pounds.

The ash cloud is having a huge impact on the UK and it dominates the news with half hourly updates. There are no planes flying in the UK and much of Europe and it is having a huge impact on the economy. At the moment we are booked to fly from London to Hong Kong on Tuesday the 20th and we are keeping our fingers crossed that this will happen. Based on what we are hearing on the news we may get out Tuesday but it is more likely we will be delayed. If we don’t get out Tuesday it could be 7 -10 days although some cheerful scientist was on the BBC this morning saying that it could take 4 – 6 weeks to get things back to normal and that the worst case scenario is that the volcano could keep on erupting for months – cheerful stuff. We are looking on the bright side and trying not to worry about things we have no control over.

Saturday night in Newcastle was interesting we went out for a meal at a very nice Chinese restaurant and then walked along the river to look at the bridges. The millennium bridge is particularly spectacular with its light show but the perfect scale model of the Sydney Harbour Bridge takes the prize.

Newcastle to London

I am writing this part of the blog on the train (it has wi fi). We left Newcastle on time at 9:30 am and should arrive in London at 12:40 pm, I think that is 400 miles in a little over 3 hours with only 4 stops.

We are looking forward to London and a stress free final few days to our holiday.