24 Hours in Edinburgh

Afternoon: Downtown Edinburgh

East Princes Street Garden:

View over the north walls of Edinburgh Castle:
In the castle's Middle Ward, just around the corner from Foog's Gate (entrance to the Upper Ward):
1970's bio/chem/nuke hazard suit and early WWI-era gas mask hood, in the castle's Military Museum:

St. Giles Cathedral, perhaps the "mother ship" for FAPC, had an interesting but depressing exhibit about modern-day slavery (called "Slave Britannia"), and also a wall of visitors' photographs of their favorite aspects of Edinburgh (with footnotes explaining their signifcance).


View of Calton Hill and the National Monument (?) from the North Bridge:

The flag proudly waves:

Evening and Morning: An Expedition to South Queensferry (the Burbs)

Oddly, as I was preparing to take this picture, 3 different hand-holding couples strolled by, blocking the sign. How annoying. I had to wait for them to clear the frame.

When you get to the historic heart of South Queensferry, you can see lovely old buildings like the Ferry Tap. Portions of it date from 1674, other portions date from 1683. You have to shake your head about this long-standing obsession of property owners to expand and modernize.

South Queensferry is on the Forth River, near its mouth (or "firth"). By an amazing coincidence, I learned that very night that the BBC ranked the Firth of Forth Bridge as #5 of the Top 10 bridges in the entire world. So I had to go see it in the morning. (Although their rating system ranked the Brooklyn Bridge #6, so it may not be entirely reliable.) This trains-only bridge, aka the "Forth Rail Bridge", was officially opened in 1890, but was built to last. According to wikipedia, the bridge

is 2.5 km (1.5 miles) in length, and the double track is elevated 46 m (approx. 150 ft) above high tide. It consists of two main spans of 1,710 ft, two side spans of 675 ft, 15 approach spans of 168 ft, and five of 25 ft. Each main span comprises two 680 ft cantilever arms supporting a central 350 ft span girder bridge. The three great four-tower cantilever structures are 340 ft (104 m) tall, each 70 ft diameter foot resting on a separate foundation.

It does look rather impressive:


The Forth is actually spanned by two bridges, but only one of them made the BBC's Top 10. (The other one is known as the Forth Road Bridge.)

As I explored neighborhoods near Dalmeny Rail Station for additional glimpses of the Firth of Forth Bridge, I came across this rather menacing scene. Is it a roller coaster in the background? Or the spiny scales of a gigantic monster?

After that, it was good at last to return home to the gentle lines of the Brooklyn Bridge and yes, even the Verrezano Bridge: