Edinburgh

We got back yesterday afternoon, from a few lovely days away in the fair city of Edinburgh. This was the third time we have spent a few days in the city and the third time we have been lucky with the weather - something of a record for Scotland!  On Monday, after flying up from East Midlands Airport, we checked in to the Travelodge before getting out and about for a walk up to Calton Hill.

At about 500ft, the hill gives some lovely views across the city and over the Holyrood area towards Arthur's Seat.

Calton Hill is topped with several interesting buildings and monuments including possibly the most impressive of them all, the unfinished National Monument, dedicated to the soldiers and sailors who died in the Napoleonic Wars.

The monument remained unfinished because, in 1829 - as is so often the case - the money ran out. Despite it having been called Scotland's disgrace because of the circumstances, it has turned out to be a wonderful sight.

The highest part of the hill is dominated by the tallest building. Nelson's Monument. Finished in 1815 to commemorate Nelson's victory at Trafalgar in 1805, it replaced an earlier signalling mast which once stood on the spot.

Above the entrance, a plaque is carved with following...

To the memory of Vice-Admiral Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, and of the great victory of Trafalgar, too dearly purchased with his blood, the grateful citizens of Edinburgh have erected this monument: not to express their unavailing sorrow for his death; nor yet to celebrate this matchless glories of his life; but, by his noble example, to teach their sons to emulate what they admire, and, like him, when duty requires it, to die for their country.

A.D. MDCCCV

More to come...