June 17, along the road during our Skjolden shore excursion.

Scotland and Norway, 2025

June 15th - Edinburgh (South Queensferry), Scotland

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Sunrise around 5:00 this morning. None of the sunrises we saw were very pretty, very colorful, but the clouds were pretty cool. We would shortly be docking in Edinburgh, Scotland, as evidenced by this land we could finally see from our balcony, but we weren't quite there yet. When a pilot boat showed up and dropped off a local pilot to help bring the ship into port, we knew we were getting close. Our room's TV showed us the route we just took from Southampton (10) to Edinburgh (2).

We could tell we were getting close to the dock when we saw this bridge coming up. We knew we weren't going to fit under it, and since there was this across the water from our starboard-side balcony, I assumed the dock would be on our port side.

Our shore excursion today didn't begin until 1:00 PM, so we had time for a leisurely breakfastnoteAgain, I didn't take many pictures of my and Mei-O's breakfasts. I include this here just as a placeholder to maintain the chronological integrity of the story..

After breakfast, we still had plenty of time to kill, so we walked around the ship to see what was going on and found this ring toss competition on the piazza in progress. There seemingly was always something going on there.

What's this? Around 11:30, we headed off the ship to catch a tender to shore. There was no deep water port in Edinburgh, so the ship had to dock off shore and we had to take tendersnoteThis picture of a tender was taken through the window of our tender as we headed to shore. ashore. Despite my worries about a rough tender ride, our voyage was short and smooth, arriving ashore at the pier in the small town of QueensferrynoteAlso called South Queensferry to distinguish it from North Queensferry just across the inlet (the Firth of Forth). just before noon. We then had just a short walk down the pier alongside the Forth Bridge (see our ship in the background?) to town.

The tide was out, leaving a messy view of the shoreline. But from the main road, besides the Forth Bridge, there was a good view of the other two bridges that crossed the inlet; the Forth Rd. Bridge and, behind it (and hard to see here. You can see the two different types of towers and piers), the Queensferry Crossing Bridge.

Queensferry was just a small town and we really were there only to catch our tour bus into Edinburgh. While we waited, we walked around to pass the time. I didn't take many pictures, though I did catch Teresa and Mei-O munching on some goodies before we got on our bus.

So about 1:15, we boarded our bus. I got a pretty good seat up front. Off we went (0:21. I found it very hard to understand our guide's strong Scottish accent). Next     Top