Edinburgh Take 2, Day 1 - Holyrood Palace

We arrived in Edinburgh late yesterday morning, after a mostly uneventful trip from Cambridge. (Next time we will try not to leave a bag behind on the opposite side of the Ely train station or attempt a last-minute rescue just as the train is pulling into the station. But all's well that ends well: both passenger and bag made it in time.)

The National Library wasn't open on 2 January--Hogmanay recovery day in Scotland--so we walked from the Waverley station down the Royal Mile for an afternoon visit at Holyrood Palace, the Queen's Edinburgh residence.

On our way we paused for a picture with Robert Ferguson, "Scots Poet, Born in Edinburgh 1750, Died in Bedlam 1774":

We began our tour with the Queen's Gallery, which is running an exhibit on the "resurgence of the arts in England" under Charles II:

 I was delighted to chance upon one of my favourite paintings from one of my favourite stories in the Apocrypha:

The very unsaintly Charles II also collected this fine painting of one of my favourite saints by George de la Tour:

As usual, no photographs were permitted within the palace:

 But the ruins of Holyrood Abbey were fair game: