We get up at seven as we want to get an early start and get to Edinburgh. We leave at 8.30 and drive back north through the cloud covered hills of the Scottish borders. Our day starts with a visit to Modern One, the modern and contemporary art wing of the Scottish National gallery. It’s a real mixture of art forms, international and Scottish artists and famous an less well known artists.
On the first floor are the spider of Bourgeois and the 5 meter baby of Ron Mueck, both of which we also saw in Canada.The last room on the first floor has pencils and papers, so the children stay there while we take turns to visit the second floor. Here they have a large collection of surrealist art from Dali to Magritte and also Yoyoi Kusama and Mondriaan.
We picknick in the sculpture garden before we cross the road to Modern Two. Here people are filming something happening in the garden, perhaps performance art? It’s a dog chasing the robot mower. Modern Two only has a paid exhibition by Gwen John, not an artist we’re interested in getting to know for 14 euros per person, and we have more to visit today.
We get back in the car and try to do our own city tour on four wheels to spare Tim’s achilles, but it’s slow going and the sites are either obscured by high walls or not interesting. So we cut the tour short and head for a parking garage in the city center. From here we walk to the National Portrait Gallery. The entrance is richly decorated with banners of the different parts of Scotland and frescos depicting iconic battles from Scottish history.
The first floor has modern portraits portraying famous and ordinary Scots from the last 100 years. Most are unknown to us but we recognize a few like Sean Connery and Billy Connolly. Upstairs are the historic portraits of Mary Queen of Scots and the like. When we’re done, we head to the Mound.
There we have some great views of the city and our next museum, the National Gallery. Here they have works from a lot of famous international artists from Botticelli to van Gogh. The lower floor is dedicated to Scottish artists but there aren’t artists whom Tim particularly fancies, except the Glasgow boys (end 19th century). Olga skipped this level to find a toilet for the kids.
Before we climb the stairs to the famous Edinburg Royal Mile we head to a cafe for some much needed refreshments. We skip the castle as we have visited it before and walk the other way. We try the oldest house on the Mile, cared for by the National Trust but the self guided tours have just ended and we can only get on a guided tour so we’ll skip this too.
We continue walking the Mile until we come upon St Giles’ Cathedral. We decide to go in and are harrased by three different individuals who tell us that the cathedral requires no ticket but that donations are very welcome, the last one is positioned in the entrance. We donate the minimum allowed amount of five pounds.
The church dates from the 14th century but significant alterations were made during later centuries. It’s a typical Scottish dark granite church, not the most beautiful, but with stained glass windows from the 19th and 20th century. There is a queue inside for the Thistle chapel, an early 20th century addition to honour the largest donors and powerful people from the area. Overall nothing special and not worth the donation.
As we walk we are greeted by a host of people watching a street performer. It’s a magician and we stay and watch his show, it’s nothing to spectacular but he makes a good show of it. He reminds the kids of Opa Hans with disapearing balls. We donate another 5 pounds for his hard work and head to our last stop of the day, the museum of Childhood.
This is the highlight of the day for the children although it’s all a bit decrepit. But it does give Tim some nostalgia seeing toys from his childhood.
We walk back to the parking garage and drive to Holyrood park on the edge of the city center. Here people climb to Arthur’s seat to get a great view of the city. We’ve done enough walking and climbing for the day, so Tim takes out the drone and gets even better views from the sky.
It’s a long drive back to our park in the Scottish Borders. We arrive at 19 and prepare an easy meal.
