Day 12 To Edinburgh

When first planning this trip, on a very limited budget, it was only going to be for 11 days.
Edinburgh wasn't on the original schedule. As the budget improved the trip expanded to include Edinburgh.
With it still drizzling in Kirkcaldy I head firstly to the Forth Bridges and stop at Queensferry on the south side of the Firth of Forth. The Victorian railbridge really is a sight, the newer road bridge is one of the most graceful things I've seen and the little, old, fishing/ferry port completes a great postcard. It's a pity I don't have a really wide angle lens.
There's a stitched panorama below to click on.

And so to Edinburgh - 'Mecca' to my pipe band/presbyterian world for 40 years.

I find my "Braveheart" B&B quite easily and drop the car off with my Iranian refugee host!
Scotland's nearest thing to our Anzac Day is Remembrance Sunday, held on the Sunday nearest 11 November. Today.
I catch a bus and get out near the Castle, deciding to visit it tomorrow. I go down the Royal Mile and there's an Army Pipe Band striking up. After a couple of photo's I have two urgent needs. I go to drop a coke can in the bin marked litter but it has a metal top welded to it. A cheerful policeman stops laughing long enough to explain that security measures are at a high level. He kindly directs me down 500 stairs to the nearest loo's at the Waverley Station.
(Why does everyone get a silly smirk whenever I open my mouth?)

Relieved and rarin' to go, I buy a 24-hour ticket for the hop-on/hop-off bus. Brilliant!
Reluctant to miss anything I do a complete circuit of the sites of Edinburgh before hopping-off on Carlton Hill. I really am like a pig in poo! After 3 complete circuits it's getting dark and the bus actually stops at the end of my street.