Today we planned to hit the art museum, the portraitgallery and the writers museum with the friend we had dinner with last night. The museum opened at 10 so we met up and headed to the art museum first since we knew exactly where that was. Surprisingly the museum was free and even more surprisingly it had some great paintings. We went in an odd door so we didn’t start at the beginning or get any kind of guide so we had no idea what to expect. Wandered into the first room and there with no fanfare was a Botticelli, a Da Vinci and three Raphael’s. there was also a great El Greco. The museum was a little hard to find your way around (probably worked fine if we had gone in the front door) but otherwise well worth it. They had a great impressionist wing with several Van Gogh’s, one of Monet’s night paintings and several other great works. I was quite impressed.

From there we walked up to the portrait gallery, which is housed in a great Georgian building. It had a full length portrait of Mary Queen of Scots we wanted to see. The museum was rather small but again since it was free well worth the trip in.

The portrait gallery also housed an old library was full of death masks, including Bergman Franklins. Not sure how that got to Edinburgh bit there it was in a cabinet with other dignitaries and murderers. It was an eclectic collection.

A little tired from all the museums and paintings we decided to skip the writers museum and grab some pizza for a late lunch.

We had a little time to burn that afternoon before we were planning to meet up to do a ghost tour that evening so Val and I shopped our way back to our hotel. We didn’t buy anything but cookies so not sure if that counts as a success or a failure but it is what it is.

The ghost tour was okay if a little corny. We went through the Greyfriars Kirk and cemetery with stories of grave robbers and the murderers buried there. However, it is hard to set a spooky mood if the first story you tell is about the dog that came for 16 years to lie on his masters grave. They have a cute statute of the dog right before you enter the churchyard and it is basically one of the mascots of the city.

After the cemetery the guide took us down into the vaults under the streets which were pretty creepy. The stories were more about the use of the vaults for storage or criminal activity then anything really scary. There was a coven of modern witches who requested and were granted use of some of the vaults up until the early 2000s but their stuff looked more theatrical than scary. The dark damp walls did set a spooky mood and I was glad when we exited but never really scared.

It was a late night and cold so after the vaults we headed back to our room. The tour starts tomorrow so we move hotels in the morning. Not looking to packing up all my new purchases.

I didn’t take too many pictures today so only a few from the ghost tour.