U.K. 2013
EDINBURGH
DAY 1 TUESDAY SEPT 3
We had quite adventure getting to Edinburgh but we are safely here. Yesterday
we had a 4:41 flight from Dulles Airport to Newark, New Jersey. It seems there
was a very bad storm in Newark and flights were all canceled or delayed. Our
flight was delayed two hours which would get us in 10 minutes after our flight
to Edinburgh left. United was very helpful in finding another flight on
Lufthansa by way of Frankfurt Germany. We had already checked our luggage, and
they didn’t know if they would be able to put our luggage on the new flight.
We left Dulles at 6:00 and arrived in Frankfort at 1:30 am EST -7:30 Germany
time. The plane was a huge B747 which hold more than 400 people. When we
checked in at the boarding desk, the nice lady said that the only seats were
two in the middle of the five seat center section. We just crawled over a
fellow and sat down when the ticket lady came on the plane and said she had
found us better seats because someone didn’t show up. The galley is about 3/4
th back in the middle. We were on the left side of the plane facing the back
wall of the galley. With no seats in front of us, we had a lot of leg room.
They served a nice dinner, and before we landed we had a good light
breakfast. We both got some sleep.
We had to go through customs, then walked
for miles to find the gate for Edinburg . The flight left at noon Germany
time. We had been in the Frankfort airport – which is huge – when we on our
trip to Central Europe in 2011.
We found the way to the gate via a train. We
decided to have a light breakfast, and then realized that we had no euros. We
had dollars and British pounds. We had notified our credit card companies
that we would be traveling in the UK. We charged it anyhow. Then Kathleen had
forgotten to buy a bottle of water so we waited a while and bought something
else to eat and a bottle of water.
The flight from Frankfurt to Edinburgh
was 1 ˝ hours. We slept all the
way. We were doubtful about our luggage, but
we landed we looked any way. When we stopped at the lost luggage office, they
were able to locate them on the computer as being in Newark, and should be on
the flight that arrives tomorrow, and they will bring them to our hotel.
We
took the bus into town to our hotel. It is the Caledonia- Waldorf Astoria –
Hilton. We have a large room on the top floor -5th -with one window with a
view of the castle and other historic buildings. The photo of the castle
isn’t very clear beca
use the window is a little dirty, and they don’t open.
The hotel will provide us with some toilet articles. I always carry my pills,
a notebook with all of the maps, reservations etc, my laptop, camera, and all
the charging wires in my carry-on. Unfortunately the electric plug converters
are in the suit case. The hotel lent us one.
We had a drink in the beautiful
Peacock Alley, which was created using the outer walls of the historic train
station and the train hotel. Then we set off to find an easy inexpensive
dinner.
We walked down the main street which had some great views of the
Castle above us on the right.
One fasc
inating
building was the Greek style Royal Scottish Academy of Art and
Architecture with its colorful columns.The Academy runs a year-round
program of exhibitions, artist opportunities and related educational
talks and events which support artist at all stages of their career. The
Academy has an extensive collections and archives.
We found it at Bella Italia, which is a chain, and was charming and
reasonable. Kathleen had cannelloni, and I had lasagne.
Then back to our room to
face the reality of having no clean clothes. We’ll have to ‘improvise’
tomorrow.
