Saturday 29th July 2023

Planning the Day

The birding part of the trip was done and I could not have been happier with the outcome, now it was time to collect my granddaughter and spend a day together in the beautiful city of Edinburgh.

With just the one day at our disposal I had made a booking on one of the ‘hop-on, hop-off’ bus tours which take tourists around the city, much as they do in many popular cities around the world. I had been to Edinburgh (my dad’s birthplace) twice before with Gerda, so it was all about showing Maia the places of interest and let her dictate how we spent the day.

I had undertaken to collect Maia by 9 am which meant an early, quick breakfast of fruit and toast and leaving the B&B in Upper Largo at 8 am to drive the 35 miles or so to Strathallan School south of Perth where she had spent the week learning new skills on the flute with some of the best teachers in the world. (She played some of her newly learnt pieces when we got back to SA and I can confidently say the trip was very worthwhile for her as well – they were simply magical to listen to).

Edinburgh

After a short wait and a chat with the school pianist, Maia appeared, and we set off to find our hotel west of Edinburgh where we parked the car and got the No 25 bus into the city.

The bus stop indicated by the driver was close to St Andrews Square, the departure point for the Red Bus tour we had booked and a short walk later we boarded the bus and plugged in the earphones for the running commentary.

The bus did a one-hour circuit of the historic parts of the centre city while we admired the iconic buildings and were amazed by the crowds of tourists that filled every narrow street and corner – I don’t recall ever seeing a major city with so many tourists, not even Rome, although Venice possibly outdoes all of them.

We got off at the last stop before the square and walked back to where we had started, then found a small Sainsbury to get a lunch special for three pounds fifty – wrap, snack and drink – which we enjoyed in the park at the square.

Next on the agenda was a shopping session for Maia while I hung around and watched the passing show – never seen quite such a variety of people all seemingly trying to stand out from the crowd – what happened to just being ordinary?

The rest of the tour was done on foot, revisiting some of the sights we had seen from the bus – we weren’t always entirely sure where we were going but walked up and down hills and along crowded streets just taking it all in and popping into a few shops which had mostly tourist ‘stuff’ at premium prices so we were not inspired to buy anything (also proof of my Scottish heritage)

We did walk up to the entrance of the famous castle, where large stands have been erected for the Tatoo coming up in August – that must be amazing to experience.

Sated with the sights of Edinburgh and a bit weary of the incessant crowds, we hopped on the next red bus, which passed many of the sights once more before getting us back to the square.

From there we walked back to Prince’s Street where we found the No 25 bus and were soon on the slow trip back to the campus where the hotel was located.

By now it was early evening and we were in need of a more substantial meal, so we headed to the hotel restaurant for a burger, after which we were glad to get back to the room and prepare for a short sleep before getting up around 3 am to catch our flight to Amsterdam and onward to Johannesburg.

Getting home

Sunday’s trip back was somewhat stressful – despite getting to Edinburgh Airport at 4.30 am – in plenty of time for our 6 am flight, or so we thought – we were met with the sight of a check-in queue snaking back and forward 6 or 7 times and spent the next 45 minutes getting ever more panicky as the queue moved painfully slowly. We had underestimated the impact of the start of the European summer holidays on the time required for airport passenger processing.

The next hurdle of getting through security was almost as bad and we ended up literally running to get to the boarding gate, fortunately just in time. The rest of the trip went as expected and we arrived in Joburg at 9 pm, got a car and drove to Pretoria to our son James’s house for the night. On Monday we did the last leg of the trip back to George in a more relaxed fashion and were glad to see the happy faces of Gerda and Geraldine as we entered the baggage hall.

And there I draw the curtain on my week in Scotland – except these curtains were on the outside of the windows so couldn’t be drawn…