Today was one of our more relaxed travel days. We thought ahead last night to make reservations for breakfast at the place that we tried to stop at yesterday that was too full, which got our day off to a great start. Banana bread + bacon + grilled peaches = deliciousness that is larger than the sum of its parts. We were aiming to be at the National Museum of Scotland when it opened, but found ourselves breakfasted, caffeinated, and in the area ahead of schedule, so took a few minutes to walk through the National Library of Scotland, which had a couple of small exhibits. As we walked into the second exhibit, I got a clear waft of “library smell”, which made my heart so happy. Chuck looked at me like I had two heads when I mentioned it, which is making me wonder if the “book smell” I associate with my hometown library is perhaps not as common in libraries as I thought. Then again, he doesn’t have a great sniffer. Either way, the smell took me back and put me in such a happy place. We also saw our second Gutenberg bible of this trip.

I don’t think either of us realized what we were in for at the National Museum. In addition to a large, broad set of Smithsonian-like exhibits, the museum has 6 floors of exhibits specifically related to Scottish history, all the way back to an exhibit covering the geological events that formed the land that is now Scotland (which I found fascinating but I think Chuck was ready to move on. Geology nerd, I guess). It took us probably 45 minutes just to get through the first floor and probably two and a half hours total just to finish the Scotland-specific exhibits and by then we were tired and very hungry, so we hit the highlighted points of interest on the museum map and headed for fish and chips on a cool side street off the Royal Mile called Victoria Street that was J.K. Rowling’s inspiration for Diagon Alley in the Harry Potter series.

After lunch, we strolled through the Scottish National Gallery, which had a mix of art from Scottish artists, as well as art from across Europe and America. The gallery had a nice flow and just the right amount of art to fill the space of an hour or so and not feel too overwhelming. This Rembrandt painting in particular resonated with me, as it reminded me of myself last summer when I had COVID, asking Chuck to bring me some Gatorade.

After the museum, we visited the Sir Walter Scott Memorial before stopping in a few tourist shops on the way back to the hotel. I bought a couple of James Pringle wool scarves, as well as a book of Scottish folk stories that I’m pretty excited to check out. We’ll head out tomorrow fairly early for St Andrews and Pitlochry, so we returned to the hotel to organize our luggage before grabbing dinner at a tapas restaurant down the street.

Today’s Highlights:

• Banana bread with grilled peaches, bananas, clotted cream, and bacon
• Library smell
• Really well curated exhibits on Scottish history
• Ordering my husband’s ruggedly masculine mocktail “Spooning on the Beach” at the bar of the fish and chips restaurant while waiting for our table
• Above pictured Rembrandt painting
• An elderly lady being pushed in a wheelchair that fully turned her head to glare at Chuck for no apparent reason as she was wheeled past the bench we were sitting on in the park
• Incredibly gimmicky tourist shops

Tomorrow’s Proposed Adventures:

• Driving along the Scottish coast to St Andrews for a tour of a golf course that is apparently famous
• Heading on to Pitlochry to stay in a B&B for the night after checking out its High Street and maybe a distillery tour