May 11, 2022 - Day 42 - Goodby to Skye and hello to Edinburgh

 We packed up the car, had a lovely breakfast with Ian and Jacqui, and headed off to Edinburgh.

Ian and Jacqui bidding us a fond farewell and bon voyage!

Looking at the view one last time.

There was some rain, off and on, but never a downpour so driving was fine. Well, except for getting stuck behind a long line of cars that were stuck behind a couple of RV's going 40 in a 60mph road. I believe we lost more than 20 minutes time, following for miles and miles behind them, before they turned off of the highway and everyone could pick up speed again.

We stopped to look at a castle.

We didn't go in, just took a quick look and then back on the road. 

A tasty lunch of vegetable soup, salad, and an open face chicken curry sandwich. I gave Don half of my sandwich and he gave me half of his tuna mayonaisse sandwich. We were at some hotel/inn almost half way to Edinburgh at about 1:30pm.

Finally entering the outskirts of Edinburgh (Leith?) about 4:30pm. The next 40 minutes of driving was sheer hell. Give me single track roads in the country any day, driving in the heart of Edinburgh during rush hour traffic was the hardest thing I have ever done. Our hotel, the Radisson Blu, is in the heart of old town, right on the Royal Mile, and it took me 17 minutes to drive the last 1 1/2 miles, not counting the time it took for me to drive around the block three times before figuring out where the Radisson parking was. We didn't drive again until we left Edinburgh.

Edinburgh is built on a whopping great big hill and is very compact. You can walk to just about all of the sights you want to see. If you don't mind walking up and down steep hills, or in some cases you can take stairs. Here is a view from Southbridge street to some other street below it.

We had a light dinner at the hotel, just salads, as we felt we hadn't been eating enough greens on our trip so far. They were very good and the first time, since we came to the UK, that I got croutons in my salad. I guess croutons aren't really a thing in the UK? We could never find any in the stores and they weren't in any salads we got at restaurants. Until now.

Just look at those tasty croutons!

We had found a jazz club on our walk earlier so we decided to go to the early show and then head back to the hotel for an early night. I was wiped out after all that driving.