| The wet Royal Mile. This runs right through the heart of the Old Town area of Edinburgh. If you take away the trappings of modern society such as cars and streetlights, you can picture what the place looked like in Victorian times. Every few hundred feet there are narrow alleyways that made me think of all sorts of mischief that might have taken place in olden days. |  |
| Edinburgh Castle on a gray September morn. Neil Diamond was nowhere to be found. |
|
| From the castle, Edinburgh to the northeast toward the Firth of Forth. This would be the area called New Town. |
|
| Edinburgh to the west. It's not Old Town. It's not New Town. It's Middle Life Crisis Town, the part of the city where the men wears gold chains and drives little red convertibles. |  |
| This is (and I'm not making this up) the castle's dog cemetery. The soldiers who were stationed here buried their pets here. You can't see the headstones, but there is MacRover and MacSpot and MacMuffin and... |  |
| The shield over the entrance to Edinburgh Castle. The words are Gaelic for "If you fuck with Scotland, we'll kick your arse!" (That's a loose translation.) |  |
| Her Majesty's Yacht Britannia. No, it's spelled "Her Majesty's Yacht Britannia", but it's pronounced "Throat-Warbler Mangrove." |  |
| This is: a) the bell on the Britannia. b) a 48 year old souvenir thimble. c) the world's largest silver diaphragm. |
 |
