Botanic Gardens @ Edinburgh

Hi again!

Apparently, I'm in full blogging mode. Today I went with Annavera to the Edinburgh botanic garden, which are situated in the north of the study (beyond Princes Street). Hahaha - I mean north of the city! How's that for a Freudian slip!

In any case, the Edinburgh garden is part of the Royal Botanic Garden of Scotland; it was founded in 1670 and is the second oldest botanic garden in Britain after Oxford's. However, the garden moved to its present location at Inverleith in 1820.

Before we walked to the Botanics, we had a hot potato at Princes Street Gardens:


The rock garden at the Botanics was truly beautiful! A selection from some of the pictures I shot:




Such wonderful colours:




One more of the rock garden:


And one more of the colours:


Trees are irresistible to climb - everyone knows that!




Previous statement buttressed by Annavera:



Anna went all biology on me:


Close-up:


A strange tree, which looks as if it was running away but grabbed by a big hand and put head-first into the ground; use your imagination, you'll see it too!


View from underneath a tree that goes up, up, up!


Rhododendron:


The most remarkable about this picture is the colour of the sky; the purplish blue is a result of the camera rather than a faithful replication of reality.


Close-up of the same flower:


There was also an elaborate greenhouse complex with various plants (the fact that some pictures are dim/misty is due to the high humidity, which caused the lens to mist up).
I think all of the flowers below are orchids (speciaal voor jou JR!):





Look at those huge leaves!


More interesting plants:




The following one reminded me of the skeletal representations used in chemistry:


There were some fish which made my skin crawl (hence they are excluded from the pictures on this weblog); Anna like them though, so they deserve to be mentioned.

Beautiful waterfall:


Vanilla plant:


Doesn't this picture make you wish you were a frog?


An odd flower, which was shaped as if it was a rose; however, it was very compact and certainly not a rose.


There were very many squirrels; surprisingly, they weren't afraid at all. However, these grey ones are evil little creatures as they have chased away all the brown ones, which are now nearly extinct in Scotland:


After a long day, we took a break at a very cosy place which turned out to be a Polish-Scottish tea house! We were very relieved to sit down for a bit and had tea ...


... and chocolate cake!


Finally, on the way home, I saw this restaurant! Needless to say, Camino Leiden is a much more pleasant spot :)


Now, it's again almost 2am and tomorrow I have to get up early as it's museum day! Yay!

Cheers for now!
Beata


"Knowledge is good, method is good, but one thing beyond all others is necessary; and that is to have a head, not a pumpkin, on your shoulders" -- A.E. Housman On application of thought to textual criticism