10.10.2010 Eva-Maria and Ivo visit

Cees-Jan's sister Eva-Maria and her husband Ivo came to visit this weekend. They had been to Edinburgh before, so we tried to show them some things they had not seen before. And where better than where we haven't before ourselves? We started with the Greyfriars Kirkyard, famous not only for its Bobby but also for James Hutton, the father of modern geology. We didn't find his grave though, as it wasn't marked on the map!
As you can see, autumn is slowly leaving its mark.


Next stop was the National Art Gallery in Princes Street gardens (always magnificent!) and then we went on to the Dean Gallery to see the 'Another World' exhibition about Surrealism. On the way we made a short stop in Dean Village, always a good photo op!
The exhibition was great, with some very weird, interesting and occasionally rather disturbing pieces...you'd have to go see it for yourself really. Ceci n'est pas une pipe, is all we can say!


The next day we planned to do a little tour into the hills, but unfortunately the weather didn't fully co-operate, with low-hanging clouds blocking most of our views. Nevertheless, it was still beautiful. We did the same tour as we had planned with CJ's parents last winter and at least this time we didn't have to go back halfway because of snow drifts!

And even without seeing the tops Eva-Maria and Ivo were still impressed with the mountains, you don't see them like this in Holland! We couldn't really enjoy the fresh mountain air to much though, as the cold breeze through the glen made it a wee bit too nippy for us.

Final stop was the Dawyk Botanic Garden on the way to Peebles. A nice place to walk around and relax and take in the beautiful scenery and autumn colours.

For more pictures of this weekend, visit CJ's Picasa site.

12.09.10 Roslin Glen and Rosslyn Chapel

It had been almost a year since we visited Rosslyn Chapel, so we figured it was time to go back (and because our free membership would soon run out...). But we had been told there it is nice walking in the area, so we checked our guide book and indeed there was a recommended hike through the Roslin Glen. So off we went!
The walk starts close to the remains of Rosslyn Castle, former home to the family St. Clair who still owns the chapel. Part of the castle is still intact and can actually be rented as holiday accomodation. Now that sounds pretty exciting!

The Roslin Glen is a valley carved out deeply in sandstone with a pretty little creek at the bottom (called the North Esk). The path went up and down and was pretty muddy, but eventually we descended all the way to water level. The path gets very narrow in places.
And yes, it really is called Roslin Glen, after Roslin village, in which sits Rosslyn Chapel...bit of a spelling oddity! Thats said, on the Ordance Survey map it is called Roslin Chapel. Confusing.

 Iwona serves as the perfect scale marker for these impressive cliffs! It's a wonder the trees on top are still standing. There's a number of small caves in the cliffs as well, one of them called Wallace's Cave according the guide book, but any connection to Wallace himself is supposedly unclear, although he was involved in the Battle of Roslin Glen in 1303 when the Scots beat the English army during the Independence battles.

Further up the path went back to the top of the valley again, and the views down to the bottom were not for the faint of heart! Needless to stay Iwona stayed well clear, whereas Cees-Jan couldn't resist the tempation to shuffle closer to get an even better view.
A very rewarding walk and the highlight was still to come!

At the end of the walk there was Rosslyn Chapel waiting for us in all her glory. We were thrilled to see that the roof canope had finaly been taken off, and even better, the scaffolding inside had been removed so we could finally see the roof and the windows in all their glory.
Coincidentally, the BBC broadcasted an interesting documentary about the architectural history of the chapel a few days after we went; if you missed it you might just be able to find it on iPlayer. Recommended!