Calton Hill, Edinburgh

We landed in Glasgow on Saturday morning and took the train to Edinburgh -- an hour-long trip -- after taking two buses from the airport to the Glasgow train station. Naturally, the Edinburgh train station included a series of steps over which we had to hoist all our bags. (Why didn't we take taxis? Well, basically we're cheap, that's why. And when in Scotland, do as the Scottish do.)

After checking into our hotel and walking around a bit, we decided to have an early dinner - but then we got distracted by the path leading up to Calton Hill, seen at left in the background, and decided to explore. It proved to be a nice stretch of the legs as the natives would say.

The monument, dedicated to Nelson was designed in the shape of his telescope. We got there about half an hour after it closed so we weren't able to climb the steps. We probably didn't need the extra exercise, anyway. There were once two observatories on the hill, the "new" observatory, built in 1818, is actually still in use.

This monument was begun after the First World War, and intended to be a full-size replica of the Parthenon. But they ran out of funds only about a third of the way through. Interestingly, the architect's name was Playfair. Perhaps his backers didn't. Still, what did get built is a majestic structure, shown here with the Firth of Forth in the background. Views in every direction are worth the climb. To see and learn more, check out this site.

In another view of the Parthenon we can see the typical assortment of tourists on the steps. We were already congratulating the heartiness of the Scots to have made the climb with us when we drew closer and realized that most of this group were Japanese and they had arrived at the top of the hill in buses.

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