We arrived in the port of Greenock this morning, it was a long transit up the firth (river) from the ocean. It was also the first morning in a long time where we had sunny skies, although it was a little foggy during the early morning sunrise.
Foggy Sunrise in Greenock, Scotland
We were tied up at the pier by about 7:00 am, and we got off the ship at about 7:30.
We asked for directions to the Greenock Central Train Station from the wonderful port staff that had set up in a building to greet us and provide maps and directions of the various cities around Greenock. However, the first order of business was to find an ATM machine so we could get some British pounds sterling money for the train. It was about a 15 minute walk through town to the train station, and we passed by several ATM machines, one of which we used to get our money. Upon arrival at the station, we bought our return tickets (round trip) to Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. The trains connected through the city of Glasgow, where we actually had to walk to a different train station to make our connection.
There were signs to follow, but somewhere along the way, we took a wrong turn. We think one of the signs was turned slightly, and we thought it pointed in a different direction. Thank goodness we had a Glasgow city map, and we found that we had only gone a couple of blocks out of the way; we chalked that up as an unforeseen sightseeing trip in Glasgow. Once we got to the station we caught the train to Edinburgh, we had only lost about 15 minutes being on our extra sightseeing side trip, and missed just one train connection (the trains run every 15 minutes).
We traveled through some very beautiful countryside, where all of the grasses were growing, and the flowers were blooming for springtime. There were many herds of sheep, and there seemed to be an awful lot of baby sheep running around. In all, it was a pleasant train ride, taking us a little over two hours total from Greenock.
Once we figured out which exit to take from the train station, we were off to climb the hill to the Edinburgh Castle.
It was very pretty, with views of the entire city from the various vantage points, most of which were areas made for mounting cannons. We went through and saw the Scottish Crowned Jewels, and learned a lot about their interesting history. There were several museums and chapels in the castle, which we also toured.
After spending a couple of hours there, we walked the street knows and the Royal Mile, which is lined with various shops, hotels, and restaurants. and the St. Giles Cathedral, which we toured.
We made our way back down the hill and walked through some of the beautiful gardens.
By that time, the temperature had warmed up considerably, and during the lunchtime hour, many of the locals were sitting on benches, the grass hills, and blankets. Apparently, it must have been one of their warmest spring days yet, probably in the mid 60’s, which was about 10 degrees warmer than normal for this time of year.
We then walked back to the train station for the return trip to Glasgow, again having to make a station change for our connection back to Greenock. This time, we actually took about 30 minutes to walk around Glasgow, not really seeing anything in particular, but we had some time to kill before we had to make our connecting train.
The Glasgow Central Train Station was very nice inside; it is all covered in a roof of glass domes.
We found our platform, and took the 40 minute train ride back to Greenock. Once back in Greenock, we took some time walking around the small city, and we actually found a Scottish Wal-Mart look alike store, and went inside. We always like to look and see what there is in the stores, and how different things are, especially drinks and sodas.
We made It back to the ship around 4:45 in the afternoon, and enjoyed some bag pipe players that assembled on the dock for our sail away.
The weather remained sunny for the entire day, and it was a very scenic transit back to the ocean, there were many nice houses, and lots of sheep grazing on the green grassy mountain sides.
Our friends Brian and Ruthe had taken an excursion to Loch Lomond, and came back with some very funny hats that resembled the Loch Ness Monster. We had a lot of fun wearing them on the ship for the sail away, and then later after dinner.
We then had a beautiful sunset to cap off the day.
It was an enjoyable day, and we turned in early to be rested for our next port tomorrow, Dublin, Ireland.