Simply, adventure.

Day 3: Edinburgh (Inchcolm Island, Waverly Bridge, Botanical Garden, City Tour)

“Walk, walk, till you relish the scenic beauty.”

This visit had it all – cruise journey, trekking and bus tours. It was the second most anticipated place whilst my Scotland vacation. Being the capital city wasn’t the specific reason (although I would’ve given the same credit to Glasgow), but the surge of my adventurous sentiments paved way.

The morning was not delightful. Woken up in a ravaged state, with only half an hour left on the watch to crawl steeping slopes all the way to the Buchanan bus station was not my idea of a brilliant start. Nevertheless, it was soon before I realized there was a larger picture, waiting to be unearthed. Citylink coach, much of the services that are similar to National Express of Megabus, with the only exception being that it runs within the Scottish roads, took a couple of hours before we entered Edinburgh. The entire bus journey was all about driving through a highway with green pastures, meadows and sweeping land masses on both sides.

Our first stop in Edinburgh was the Waverly Bridge. Quite a handsome spot for a transportation station, it had a shopping complex (where we hoped to buy Kentucky Fried Chicken from at the end of our day, before realizing it shuts at 6 pm!) on one side and the open road on the other. Our coach, as planned by my friend (who was also my tour guide, with the exception that he was visiting Edinburgh for the first time as well), was designed of three tours. The first of them was the Bus and Boat tour. As the name suggests, it was a drive to the northern shore of Scotland, through alleyways, wide open fields and sensationally structured houses (one of which dazzled me from within, with its attractive white walls with a small GREEN park at its head and a cemented crystalline pathway that led to its door), before we took a cruise to the Inchcolm Island.

Believe me, it is not good to see people sitting in a cruise with the bright Scottish sunlight pouring down on them in a brochure, when in reality it is raining cats and dogs. So there we were, on a cruise, sipping hot chocolate, while the people in the brochure were smiling at us, bathing delightfully in the sun. But the camera doesn’t shy, or atleast mine doesn’t. We went out of the shed, clicking pictures of practically everything we saw, from seagulls, to yachts, lighthouses, cluster of islands that housed remains of historical structures, mostly grey. It was a cruise journey of approximately 45 minutes before we arrived at, what I’ll describe as the heaven of my trip, Inchcolm Island. The entry fee was 5 pounds, which triggered hesitation in our minds. But owing to our surge of adventure, that still slowed at the speed of light in our veins, we got hold of our tickets and climbed out.

The island is everything that you can think off. Something like the perfect picture of a holiday. Water padding over the rocky shore, which further opens to a highland filled with (again) greenery, with seagulls occupying every inch of it, and at a distance, a fort untouched by any human activity.

Walking through one part of the green lawns with seagulls all around was a terrifying experience. Every second of it was dreadful. For ten seconds straight, we had a seagull right on top of our heads, screaming at its highest pitch. The worst screeching that I might’ve heard before that wasn’t even remotely close to being as brain-traumatizing as this one was. Every now and then I was step up my speed to reach the safer side of the island. But when we did, there was a sigh of relief.

The fort, well, most of it were remains of what I can only imagine to be a grand banquet hall for ceremonious occasions in the pre-medieval times, was shaped like a pre-historic church (as most of the Scottish university buildings and regular churches are). There were neither any secret passageways, nor underground corridors; just a slice of an archeological discovery. The most amazing part of it was that it still conducted weddings, one of which was on that same day. One of the rooms was specially prepared, with candles, roses and files of seating arranged. We couldn’t stop comparing the respectfulness that the Scottish showed towards their architectural heritage, with the mayhem that Indian people cause on the walls of our structures.

Sitting beside the shore, watching the waves surf through one another is a (needless to say) heavenly experience. The time allotted to us for a exploring the island was merely 90 minutes, and so we headed back to the mainland. Arriving at the mainland, we were driven back to Waverly Bridge, where we sat on a bus with a banner reading “Majestic Tour” flowing at its head. The first stop on our “Majestic Tour” was the Botanical Garden.

I have never been to one, and therefore, I cannot be the apt person to judge whether the species of plants it housed was spectacular or not. Personally, I thought it was so. A colossal ground of every possible species that you can think of was there right in front of our eyes. I could not gather any scientific names, because, well, the names belong to classes that can only be understood by botanical geeks. The one plant I remember, was bluebells, that I saw for the first time. Sounds unreal, of course, especially that it comes from a person who studied in a school called “Bluebells” for 14 years.

Anyway, the rest of the journey was on the wheels. Apart from the Waverly Bridge, island and botanical garden, we did not walk through the rest of Edinburgh. The colonies, regular residential areas and local markets did not point to anything amazingly specific; everything seemed similar to Glasgow, with its columns of towering structures, flourishing windows on apartment buildings and cars lined up on streets.