Around The World Without Flying: Edinburgh Part 2

Queen Mary 2 is a great ship, with so many unique facilities that other ships do not have. For example, yesterday I went to its second very large theatre, which must seat at least 1000 people and boasts a huge planetarium. Its dome lowers down and the seats lay back so you can see shows about the stars and planets. I have not attended one of these before but on this occasion I saw a recently released, brilliant National Geographic presentation ‘Wildest Weather in the Solar System’. This featured amazing imagery sent back by the various space probes. I had no idea that on one planet there are seas of liquid methane and the planet has a methane cycle like ours has a water cycle, or that on another outer planet, the atmospheric pressure is so great that methane is compressed to such an extent it ‘rains’ diamonds! In this theatre you also can see movies or attend major lectures.

All this technology available, and yet I and other passengers continue to be frustrated with the very slow and very expensive satellite connections that are used by this ship for its internet services. The speed and efficiency of these services comes and goes. I have found the best time to use it is in the wee hours of the morning when there is less demand, but that leaves me exhausted. It took at least 10 attempts and almost 4 hours, I kid you not, just to upload my post on Edinburgh Part 1! Even then, uploading the photos was problematic, as they kept dropping out. Receiving and sending emails was equally frustrating. And on this ship you pay by the hour. I have not had such trouble on other ships. I only hope I have less problem uploading this post.

Back to Scotland . . .

The historic Palace of Holyroodhouse was a fascinating place to visit. It is located opposite the new Scottish Parliament House and is used by the Queen for her official visits to Scotland. Of course, it is strictly off limits when she is there. Princess Anne often stays at the palace as well.

Right in the palace grounds, where there are lovely though relatively small gardens, are the ruins of an ancient abbey. This adjoins the palace, on which restoration work is being carried out. Rising behind the gardens are hills, the tallest of which is ‘Arthurs’ Seat’. I was interested to hear that name because we have a hill of the same name, not quite as tall as far as I can tell, in our Australian state of Victoria. It is about 2-3 hours drive from Melbourne, depending on whether you drive there on our freeways or on the more leisurely coastal route. Presumably ours is named after this hill. Anyhow, from the palace grounds, we could see some people walking over the top of Arthur’s Seat, although they looked like ants. One couple from our group when up there later in our free time and say it was extremely windy, though the views of Edinburg and the surrounding countryside were spectacular.

Unfortunately, though understandably, we only saw a few of the more public rooms of the palace, and were not permitted to take any photos inside the palace. It was very old and while it was less ornate than palaces I have seen in Europe, there was an understated dignity about it. There was a beautiful ceramic dinner service on display in the dining room, which had lovely Grecian columns and was painted in beautiful shades of green. The windows on one side looked out onto a courtyard below. In many rooms lovely, very old tapestries hung over the walls and in one room there was a display of Stuart relics and mementos.

The bedchamber of Queen Mary with its canopied bed and wooden ceiling was quite moving to see. The thought of her spending the last 20 years of her life locked up by her English cousin Queen Elizabeth, and then being beheaded, was very sad, especially when we learned it took about four attempts to remove her head from her body. We saw a display of some of the tapestries she created whilst locked up in the cold, dark Tower of London. The problem was the Elizabeth believed she was using these to communicate with her followers. And behind all of this was the conflict between Protestantism and Catholicism.

I should imagine that because it is not ‘busy’ with ornate decorations, the palace would be a peaceful place in which to stay, despite the many reminders of the tragic story of Mary, Queen of Scots, and her son. Interestingly, one room was full of portraits of all the Scottish monarchs going back hundreds and hundreds of years, all painted by the same artist over a period of about three years and painted onto the wall itself, each portrait ‘framed’ by just a rectangle of plain painted wood. Of course the artist had no record of what the earlier kings looked like, but apparently was instructed to guess what they may have looked like and to include one feature common to all, the shape of their nose, to show their heritage.

In my next post I will talk about our next stop - Edinburgh Castle.