Monday 16 Sept 2024
After a wonderful two weeks in France exploring my friend Dominique’s home town of Angers, I travelled on to Scotland to catch up with friends Andrew and Doreen who I had met on a trip to Nepal & Bhutan back in 2019 before all the craziness that Covid19 has brought us.
Despite France being relatively close to the UK, it still took me an entire day to get there with a 2.5 hour train trip from Angers to Paris, a ridiculously long time (1.5 hours) to get through security at the airport (I think they all just went to lunch and left us standing there), and a flight through to Edinburgh.
It was such a relief to finally get to Edinburgh airport and to see Andrew and Doreen’s smiling faces waiting for me as I came through. They live in Roslin about 20 minutes south of Edinburgh. Thankfully it is a bank holiday so the city bypass is not jammed as it usually would be at that time in the evening.
The village of Roslin has three unusual claims to fame: Dolly the world’s first cloned sheep, the mysterious Rosslyn Chapel (of Da Vinci Code fame), and Bovril.
There are different spelling variations of Roslin that appear to be used interchangeably for different things: it is Roslin village and Roslin castle but Rosslyn Chapel. The name comes from the Gaelic “Ross” for promontory or cliffs and “Lynn” for water and describes its position on steep cliffs overlooking the river in the valley or glen below.
The housing estate that Andrew and Doreen have moved into is actually built on the site of the old Roslin Bio Institute where Dolly the Sheep was cloned. The university still owns farms all around, including where Dolly would have grazed.
Although Andrew and Doreen have only moved back to this area a couple of years ago, they both have strong ties back to Roslin and Edinburgh from their youth and in fact they met while both working together at the Plant Breeding Centre here. Doreen’s grandmother had a cottage in the village – that Andrew and Doreen owned for many years as well.
Doreen has made a lovely meal and we spend the evening reminiscing and catching up on all the happenings over the last 5 years.
Scotland Short Break (Day 1) – this post
Day 2: Around Roslin Village
Day 3: Edinburgh Walking Tour
Day 4: Peebles, Scottish Borders
Day 5: Falkland Palace, Kingdom of Fife
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