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holyroodhouse
edinburgh |
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 The facade of The Palace of Holyroodhouse from the gatehouse. I have no pictures of the inside of Holyroodhouse, since it is a working palace and they don't allow you to take photos for security reasons. This is where the Queen stays when she comes to Edinburgh. |
 Picturesque view of the south part of the main facade, across a bizarrely strikingly pretty parking lot. This is in the center of Edinburgh, even though the hillside behind doesn't look it. Edinburgh has a few crags, including Arthur's Seat (which may or may not be the crag behind the palace in this photo), dotted around the city. |
 One of the gates into the palace area. I didn't get a closer photo of it because by this time of the day my feet were really sore and I didn't want to do any more walking than absolutely necessary. |
 'Holyrood' means 'Holy Cross,' and Holyroodhouse is built on the site of an old abbey. The ruins of the abbey are right next to the palace (as in *right* next to the palace, as you'll see in a photo below), and they let you take photos there. The Edinburgh limestone again, with even more centuries of smoke to darken it than most of the rest of the city. |
 Ruins of the nave of the abbey. |
 OK, so I got a bit artistic with the angles. It looks good. So there. I admit to a bit of fiddling with the saturation of the colors to make the photo match my memory of the walls. :) |
 Still more abbey. Makes one wish it hadn't been destroyed. I've forgotten, but it was probably due to that whole Henry VIII-sacking-the-monasteries thing. |
 One last photo of the abbey. As you can see, the palace is built right against the abbey ruins - those bricks on the right make up the wall of the palace. |
 This photo sort of encapsulates Edinburgh, I think. In the foreground the gatehouse of Holyroodhouse, and in the background the cranes used in the construction of the new Scottish Parliament building. Edinburgh is a tightly-packed melange of old and new, and this pretty much summarizes it. Oh yeah - if you want an entertaining few minutes, find a Scot and ask them their opinion of the new Parliament building. They'll be happy to rant at you for a very long time. |
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