Last Day of The Festival

What a stonking good September day.

Woke to brilliant blue skies, so took a drive round The Mearns before breakfast in Montrose. Could easily have blipped a month's worth here alone, but I saved my memory card for Edinburgh.

After the train ride down through Angus and Fife, started my tour of the capital at the National Gallery, where they have an Elizabeth Blackadder exhibition going on (I'm a bit of a fan, even if it doesn't fit with my hard man image), before picking Nathan up at the Balmoral.

It was Nathan's first time in Edinburgh so we took the obligatory walk up the Royal Mile to the castle before settling down for a pint at the back of the Castle Arms overlooking the West Bow and Grassmarket; gave me the chance to tell my city built on a city type stories (anyone know if Terry Pratchett used this for inspiration in Ankh-Morpork?). We rounded off the Old Town with Greyfriar's Kirk, N was unacquainted with Greyfriar's Bobby (E. Atkinson or W. Disney) or the National Covenant; but that didn't stop me having a rant about the relative importance of each.

Spent the evening in the Cumberland bar down in the New Town, ostensibly to admire the Unesco World Heritage Site, Robert Adams, and the neo-Classical architecture, but we may have been slightly distracted by the foaming ale. Then headed back to Princes Street where I dropped N off in front of the "Virgin" concert and fireworks before I caught the train home.

Blip is the Princes Street Gardens from beside the National Gallery; to the left is the Scott Monument (he of Rob Roy, Ivanhoe and Waverley fame) and in the centre is the Balmoral (forally the "North British") Hotel.