I am practising my travel journalist skills everyone, so these posts will be an attempt to find my journalistic voice, please bear with me!
I arrived in Edinburgh last Thursday and spent the first two or three days emerging from jet lag combinedwith a severe head cold/sinus condition which flared up on the flight from Singapore to London. The cabin was airless and a guy behind me sneezed all the way to London - that's probably the best explanation. And the summer pollens here are not helping! At least we didn't lose a chunk of the British Airways plane on that flight......
Summer in this part of Scotland (ie,Fife) is misty! The locals call it morky - that means a combination of humid, close and smoggy. The mists rolling in from the west coast up the river Forth are known as the 'haar.' It usually clears up by mid afternoon and by 8.00 pm at night it is a balmy evening with soft gold sunlight. I am finding it strange to go to bed at 10.00 pm when it is still light outside.
We spent our first night at 17th century Hawes Inn at South Queensferry. South Queensferry is on the Edinburgh side of the Firth of Forth. Queensferry North is on the Dunfermline side. Dunfermline being the ancient spiritual and political centre of this part of the UK, the ferry landings are said to be the place where one of Scotland's earliest kings, Malcolm Canmore, received an exiled Margaret, whose lineage and origin are debated, but who has acquired the image of a saint. Apparently Malcolm fell in love with her and she became Queen Margaret. A pious woman, she had shelters built on both side of the Forth at these points, for pilgrims travelling to the great abbey and monastry at Dunfermline. Hence the name for the two ferry landings.
Hawes Inne must be the archetypal Ye Old Inne, with miles of wood panelling and flooring, huge rough beams on the low slung ceiling, and fireplaces everywhere. Fascinating historical prints depicting aspects of life on the Forth hang in the main bar and the various restaurant nooks and spaces. Our room was a turret on the second floor, with magnificant views of the vast Forth and the two bridges, the road traffic suspension bridge and the railway bridge which soars above the Hawes Inne across to North Queensferry. The room was very spacious with warm red tones and lanterns softly glowing in each window,creating a feeling of cosiness and antiquity. Robert Louis Stevenson apparently had lodgings at Hawes Inne and spent many hours staring at the huge expanse of the Forth as he wrote his famous works.
South Queensferry is a delightful village between the two Forth bridges. Its cobbled, narrow main street winds organically along the shore line, lined with what to an Antipodean like myself, appear to be storybook rows of terraced houses and shops, built mostly in the 17th Century. Baskets of brilliant summer flowers hang from every building facade and glow from rows of pots along the street.
It is summer holidays in the UK, and places on the waterfront such as Queensferry are buzzing with locals and also international tourists, all promenading along the foreshore holding hands and licking icecreams, doggedly remaining in shorts and T shirts in spite of a cutting wind chill blowing across the water.
I arrived in Edinburgh last Thursday and spent the first two or three days emerging from jet lag combinedwith a severe head cold/sinus condition which flared up on the flight from Singapore to London. The cabin was airless and a guy behind me sneezed all the way to London - that's probably the best explanation. And the summer pollens here are not helping! At least we didn't lose a chunk of the British Airways plane on that flight......
Summer in this part of Scotland (ie,Fife) is misty! The locals call it morky - that means a combination of humid, close and smoggy. The mists rolling in from the west coast up the river Forth are known as the 'haar.' It usually clears up by mid afternoon and by 8.00 pm at night it is a balmy evening with soft gold sunlight. I am finding it strange to go to bed at 10.00 pm when it is still light outside.
We spent our first night at 17th century Hawes Inn at South Queensferry. South Queensferry is on the Edinburgh side of the Firth of Forth. Queensferry North is on the Dunfermline side. Dunfermline being the ancient spiritual and political centre of this part of the UK, the ferry landings are said to be the place where one of Scotland's earliest kings, Malcolm Canmore, received an exiled Margaret, whose lineage and origin are debated, but who has acquired the image of a saint. Apparently Malcolm fell in love with her and she became Queen Margaret. A pious woman, she had shelters built on both side of the Forth at these points, for pilgrims travelling to the great abbey and monastry at Dunfermline. Hence the name for the two ferry landings.
Hawes Inne must be the archetypal Ye Old Inne, with miles of wood panelling and flooring, huge rough beams on the low slung ceiling, and fireplaces everywhere. Fascinating historical prints depicting aspects of life on the Forth hang in the main bar and the various restaurant nooks and spaces. Our room was a turret on the second floor, with magnificant views of the vast Forth and the two bridges, the road traffic suspension bridge and the railway bridge which soars above the Hawes Inne across to North Queensferry. The room was very spacious with warm red tones and lanterns softly glowing in each window,creating a feeling of cosiness and antiquity. Robert Louis Stevenson apparently had lodgings at Hawes Inne and spent many hours staring at the huge expanse of the Forth as he wrote his famous works.
South Queensferry is a delightful village between the two Forth bridges. Its cobbled, narrow main street winds organically along the shore line, lined with what to an Antipodean like myself, appear to be storybook rows of terraced houses and shops, built mostly in the 17th Century. Baskets of brilliant summer flowers hang from every building facade and glow from rows of pots along the street.
It is summer holidays in the UK, and places on the waterfront such as Queensferry are buzzing with locals and also international tourists, all promenading along the foreshore holding hands and licking icecreams, doggedly remaining in shorts and T shirts in spite of a cutting wind chill blowing across the water.
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