Rain Today, Home Tomorrow

The day started sunny and we branched out from touring museums and castles and visited Edinburgh Royal Botanical Gardens.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Botanic_Garden_Edinburgh
The gardens are a scientific centre for the study of plants, their diversity & conservation.  It was founded in 1670 as a physic garden to grow medicinal plants.  We decided to take the guided tour and as it happened our tour guide was a retired physician.  She was also a keen birder adding to our experience.  The tour was one hour and she took us through many parts of the garden that we may not have seen had we been on our own.

We finished the tour just in time for lunch.  The gardens have a cafeteria with many options, including soup.  Today's special - tomato.  At least the rain didn't start until after we had finished the garden tour.

We decided to go back to the National Museum of Scotland and view a few more of the exhibits we missed yesterday.  Here is the skeleton of giant deer from 12,3000 years ago found on the Isle of Man

and a statue that guarded an ancient Nubian Temple, 100 - 50 BC

This is our last day of our getaway and we wanted to do an online check-in for our flights.  Our hotel was not able to accommodate us and directed us to the public library which is very close to the hotel.  We now have library cards to use the Scottish Public Library system and can access the information online anywhere in the world.

The words above the door of the library read Let There Be Light. 

Ed and I have had a wonderful time on our Gaelic Getaway and we are bringing home many fond memories.