London to Edinburgh and Dunfermline.
I left Hilary and Claudio around 10:30, heading for Kings Cross station, from where I caught a noon train for Edinburgh, en route to meet Elana tomorrow. Starting out today, the weather was much different,and I was sorry to wear long pants and a t-shirt, and by the time I got to Edinburgh it was time for a sweatshirt and starting to drizzle.
The Edinburgh train departed right on time, and it was smooth sailing all the way, with few stops along the easy, about 4½ hour, journey, with pleasant countryside most of the way, but getting even more beautiful as we entered northeast England and sped along the North Sea coast as we neared Scotland. The train windows were pretty dirty from the outside, but I was able to take some decent photos from the train.
After arriving at Waverley Station in Edinburgh, I headed to the airport to pick up our rental car, and and after a few minutes of getting oriented, I caught the Air Link bus from near the station, which is simply a local bus route that terminates at Edinburgh Airport, passing through some of the lovely stone buildings downtown area of Edinburgh, and seeing some of the classic Edinburgh sites. I’ve been here a couple of times, and was reminded of what a lovely city this is.
I’m not sure how much we’ll get to explore Edinburgh though, given our plans to be in the northern highlands and then the Faroe Islands. Elana really wants to experience some of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe (the Fringe), which is going on right now, the world’s largest arts festival, taking place every August.
I got to the airport with no problem, and worked my way to the off-airport rental area, and picked up the car – bigger than I wanted, but otherwise fine, and off I went to Dunfermline, where I’m spending the night before returning to the airport tomorrow morning to pick up Elana.
And Dunfermline is quite some place itself, although relatively small. I picked a hotel there as it far less expensive than Edinburgh hotels, and especially this month due to the Edinburgh Fringe, which brings many visitors to the city. It was a little further than I thought, about 17 northwest of Edinburgh and about a 35 minute drive from the airport. I’m glad I did, though.It is another classic town, filled with stone buildings, and especially in its relatively small and dense historic center, where I stayed.
After checking into the City Hotel, a very nice looking place, and quite modern with a nice looking restaurant and bar, although with a small, but nice enough, room, I took a walk around the city center.
Dunfermline is a small city of a little less than 60,000, but with a rich history, and sits near the Firth of Forth (a firth is an estuary, in this case fed by the River Forth and then flowing into the North Sea), which separates it from Edinburgh to the southeast.
The town’s importance dates back to the 11th century when a royal presence was first established. Dunfermline Abbey was founded by the queen and built in 1128, and became the burial place of numerous Scottish kings and queens, including Robert the Bruce, one of Scotland’s most important kings, was buried at the Abbey in 1329.
The remains of Dunfermline Palace are immediately next to the Abbey, initially established as a royal residence between 1120–1150, and during the 15th and 16th centuries was rebuilt and expanded. King Charles 1 was born there in 1600. It’s ruins now, dating back to a major fire that damaged the palace in 1624.
The town later became one of Scotland’s important linen-producing towns, and particularly so in the 17th and 18th centuries. Andrew Carnegie, who became one of the world’s richest men after coming to the United States at age 13, was born in Dunfermline in 1835, his father a handloom weaver and his mother a seamstress. Carnegie later put money back into the city, purchasing Pittencrieff Park, which he gave to the people of Dunfermline, and funding other community facilities, and his philanthropy had an enormous impact on the city.
By now, it was starting to darken, and was cool and rainy. I passed a chip shop (honestly, I wasn’t looking for one, but there it was), so naturally I bought some and ate them as I walked through Pittencrieff Park and then a final pass through the town before heading back my room at the City Hotel, blogging, checking things out for the next couple of days, and going to sleep.
