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Edinburgh 2022

We are having a few days away up in bonny Scotland staying with friend in Edinburgh.  Our friend  has a very fab gaff top floor high up with tremendous views both across the city and the hills.   We had G&T's in the roof garden and then a lovely evening drinking wine, watching a beautiful sunset and catching up on events over the last covid years...  

After investigating all climbing opportunities up the side of our friends building as one does... we went to have a mosey around the Scottish National Portrait Gallery which is a beautiful gallery and houses some really good art.  We have been before, but the exhibits change, but mostly its the stunning building  that is the most striking.


After lunch in the gallery we did an afternoon matinee of the film 'Fall' - interesting tense but totally slated by the 3 expert climbers I was watching with as technically it was ALL WRONG and TOTALLY UNFEASIBLE ..  yes all those things - irresponsible, unlikely etc -  however it wasn't a bad film  - it had its moments and it filled a rainy afternoon...


and now for more culture!!

I've wanted for a long time now to visit the Scottish V&A museum site in Dundee more for the building than the contents... so we had a trip out seeing as we were at the right end of the British Isles - to be honest it was an interesting experience but a tad disappointing.... I was expecting the building to be much nicer - having seen it on the tele...but it was actually not as nice - for some reason I thought it was going to be shiny metal and it is in fact grey concrete.  The shapes the bars make are nice, both reminiscent of  a large ship and sea cliffs but overall I personally thought it was a bit bleak.  

Inside was possibly less disappointing as I had been told not to expect much so I was better prepared for potential lack of content.  Most of the building is given over to a shop, seating area, reception and cafe all surrounded by peculiar wooden boarding up the walls.  The single gallery space seem small in comparison tot he whole floor area.  I checked we hadn't missed something and in fact the staff member was obviously used to this query as she was very pleasantly apologetic about lack of exhibits.  

The stuff on display was very good and eclectic collection - nicely displayed but with poor labels... I really expected better of the V&A but hey ho....  It had to be visited to be experienced. but I won't be going again - I'll stick to the original beautiful seriously full version sadly down south... I need a London trip...


looks so much better in photos than in real life😞



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