Cruise Port 8 – South Queensferry & Edinburgh, Scotland
Still with us? Hard to keep up? Imagine actually being there. Don’t get me wrong, I loved our vacation, but it was very busy, as you can see. That’s OK, only three more ports, one more day at sea, and one more day in London before we’re done!
Port 8 brought us to South Queensferry, the port town for Edinburgh, Scotland. I’ve always wanted to see Edinburgh, so I was looking forward to this. Upon our arrival arrival at the port (this was a “tender” for the ship, meaning they anchored at sea and sent little boats with passengers to shore. Don’t worry, you’ll see pictures later) we were told by Princess staff that there was no shuttle, and we should make our way from South Queensferry to Edinburgh by taxi. A few steps outside the port, and there were plentiful private shuttle services to Edinburgh on air conditioned, comfortable buses for five quid each person, each way. Too bad Princess doesn’t want to run a shuttle anymore; I guess they need to sell more shore excursions.
Anyway, to the point: Edinburgh is exactly like London. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a beautiful city and all, but not much different than touring London. We had two disappointing experiences in Edinburgh: one, a bigoted highlander running a tartan shop didn’t want to talk to us about Clan Maxwell tartans because, as she said, “Maxwells were not a Clan, they were a family, and they didn’t have a tartan.” Sheesh. Second, all the restaurants along the shopping and tourist streets were little cafes with limited seating, and our lunch-hungry family of five ended up eating at a TGI Friday’s because it was the only place that had enough seats for us.
The first couple of pictures you see are the view of the South Queensferry Bridge from our tender. We dubbed this “Lego Bridge” because they have covering over part of the bridge for painting, which makes the bridge look like it’s made of Legos. After that, pictures of us touring Edinburgh on our own.
Oh yeah, I guess you want the pictures link. Here it is. Tomorrow: Day 2 at Sea, and then… Paris!