We were sorry to leave the madhouse in Falkirk after the 4 nights. The hosts were great as were their other 2 residents. We had many laughs and our concerns about having just an air bnb room were ill founded. Our stay was so easy and comfortable. Our hosts were Patricia and Graeme, then there was Sophia (hope the spelling is right), from Italy and Taylor from Canada. We were able to do all our washing and drying before we left this morning, so we’re set for another week. Memories from this stay will stay with us.
From left to right:
Graeme, Taylor, Sophia, Gill, Patricia and Rick.
Our first stop today was the Royal Yacht Britannia, berthed in the Leith harbour on the northern edge of Edinburgh.
The Royal Yacht Britannia was home to Her Majesty The Queen and the Royal Family for over 40 years, sailing over 1,000,000 miles around the world. She was launched from the shipyard in Clydebank on 16 April, 1953. For over 44 years she served the Royal Family, travelling over one million miles to become the most famous ship in the world. She was used as the Royal residence for state visits, official receptions, Royal honeymoons and family holidays. She was built for the dual role of becoming a hospital ship if needed. She is now owned by The Royal Yacht Britannia Trust. The ship is amazing and very interesting to see the different levels of comfort and facilities between different levels of crew. Very luxurious, as you’d expect, for the Royals and important people, to very comfortable for the higher ranking crew to the cramped conditions for the lower ratings. At least they all have beds/bunks now. Until the refit in the 70s, the low ratings had hammocks. There have been Royal yachts since 1660. We had a light lunch and coffee on board. Well worth the visit. Gill’s back lasted the visit.
We had planned to cross the Firth of Forth on the beautiful new cable stayed bridge, but it is still not finished. Instead we crossed on the equally stunning and famous Forth Road Bridge, built in 1964. Another box or 2 ticked. There are 3 totally different bridges close together, the last is the old steel rail bridge, the Forth Bridge, opened in 1890, 55,000 tons of steel and 6.5 million rivets. when it was completed, it was the longest single cantilever bridge in the world.
After the detour to find good view points for all 3 bridges, we headed north east, to around the mouth of the Firth of Forth to look at some pretty harbour villages. It was getting late in the day, so we only called into Pittenween and St Monans. The tide was out, so many boats were sitting on the harbour floor.
We reversed our route back to Kirkcaldy where we are for the night, in a very comfortable hotel with a big room.
We too were impressed with the Britannia - on the walkway leading to the yacht we some memorabilia including a Rum Tot measurer (each naval rating was allowed one tot per day) which brought back memories of dad's story of being drunk for the first time (during the war) when the ratings had been bottling their tots and they shared it with him.
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