Edinburgh - "Hop On/Hop Off" (Day 2)...

Our second day of the hop on/hop off bus started with our first stop at St. John's Episcopal Church and the Parish Church of St. Cuthbert.

St. John's is a relative newcomer with regards to churches in Europe. Construction was started in 1816 and the church was formally dedicated in 1818. It's not the most ornate church I've ever been in, but it's fancy enough, to be sure.

The ceiling in St. John's is pretty extraordinary...

Standing not far from St. John's is the Parish Church of St. Cuthbert. If St. John's is a toddler in the realm of European churches, St. Cuthbert's is a newborn, having not been dedicated until the year 1894. That being said, there has been a place of worship, in one form or another, on this spot since, it's believed, the 8th century.

The Parish Church of St. Cuthbert...

One of the things that makes St. Cuthbert's unique is that it's set far from the street, surrounded by its grave filled church yard. It's also set well below street level. I was actually taken aback by how (for lack of a better word) plain the inside of this church was. Don't get me wrong; it was very nice, but with the exception of the apse, it's almost pedestrian compared to other area churches. What this church does have, though, that others do not, is a Tiffany stained glass rendering of David going to meet Goliath.

This is one of only three Tiffany windows in the entire United Kingdom...

The interior of St. Cuthbert's...

We'd purchased the two-day, mega tour bus ticket from Edinburgh Bus Tours. I highly recommend using this as your preferred way to get around town. Not only do you get to see a lot, but you save a ton on cab fare. Of course, if you bring your daughter with you, much of your day will be spent just waiting to be told where you're going next.

Jessy Parr: Wingman and tour director extraordinaire...

I know I keep saying it, but I love these buses. The ticket we bought allowed us to ride any of three buses which did different routes throughout the city. We decided to go ahead and switch from the City Sightseeing tour bus to the Majestic tour bus, and head over towards the water. We were able to see the Royal Yacht Brittania, but we opted out of the tour. Instead, we found our way over to Leith, which sits north of Edinburgh along the coast of the Firth of Forth.

We started at Gladstone's Bar. We pulled our bar stools up and ordered a couple of beers.

 

 

As we walked along, it became pretty clear that this definitely wasn't the tourist part of town. It seemed more the place for locals, although that didn't deter us. We had ourselves a nice, leisurely walk into the center of town and opted for a late lunch at The Granary. The food was excellent, as was the atmosphere and, because of my previous experience the day before at breakfast, I opted for the Chicken Balmoral, which is basically two halves of a chicken breast stuffed with haggis. It was absolutely delicious, and highly recommended. Plus the staff is pretty stellar, too.

Chicken Balmoral, tomatoes, green beans, Dauphinoise potatoes and a whisky au jus...

We decided we would start winding our way back to our hotel, as we were taking a motor coach tour the next morning and it would be leaving much earlier than we had been waking up. We just didn't want to chance anything. We took the "hop on/hop off" back to Waverley Station, grabbed some snacks to take back to the hotel, and picked up an Uber. We'd had a good day, and from the looks of the itinerary, the days were only going to get better...