Another shot of the castle as seen from Princes Street Gardens below it. The area where the gardens are now was originally the “Norloch”, or “North Lake”. They drained it when Newtown was built though, and I guess it was really pretty disgusting (they used it to drown a lot of “witches” in medieval times). Now it’s a pretty garden with a fountain and lots of benches.

We finished off Saturday night with a huge Italian dinner. Sunday morning we checked out of the hotel and headed back into town for one last push of sightseeing. Here’s our B&B as seen from the outside.

We started Sunday with an open-top bus tour around the city. Here’s Holyrood House, the Queen’s residence, as seen through the trees as we were driving past. (Hilarious aside: an obnoxious American woman kept asking the little tour guide lots of stupid questions. When we passed Holyrood, she asked, “Who lives there now?” And he said, “The Royal Family.” To which she replied, incredulous, “The English royal family?” I cracked up. Scotland and England have been joined together for a couple centuries now, you idiot.)

Some more skyline… I admit I don’t really know what I was goin’ for here.

Snookums is cold.

Our next stop as the Camera Obscura, which is a tall tower near the castle. At the very top is a mirror that directs a 360-degree image of the city down onto a table in a darkened room. It was pretty cool. They also have rooms with holograms and other visual magic tricks. The observation deck offers great views of town and the Firth courtesy of telescopes, which Snookums is using here.

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