The Royal Yacht Britannia, Edinburgh, 21st November 2013

Having spent quite a lot of money on dinner the night before we need to be a bit more careful for the rest of our stay in Edinburgh. So we opted for a bus over a taxi to get us to Britannia. I guess this made it feel a bit more like a "trip" and we got to see a bit more of Edinburgh along the way including the Scottish Parliament and Holyroodhouse.

To get to the entrance of Britannia you have to go through a shopping centre, which is a bit weird. You start the tour at the top of the boat (on the bridge) and gradually work your way down through the royal quarters, Royal entertaining rooms, crew's' quarters, sick bay and engine room. There was an audio guide (how did we ever manage without them?) that pointed out the main sights and shared some interesting anecdotes. I was a bit disappointed it wasn't the Queen or Prince Phillip commentating.

Britannia was decommissioned in 1997 after 44 years and having travelled over one million miles. It's always interesting to see how the other half live, and it seems strange that on the one hand the Royal family would try to be frugal (much of the furniture was recycled from their previous yacht) yet all of their silver had to be polished every day.

Tea and cake in the Royal Deck Tea Room looked nice, but budget restraints meant we had to make do with a toasted cheese sandwich and coffee in the shopping centre.

http://www.royalyachtbritannia.co.uk

Trying on the uniform

The Sick Bay

The Ship's bell

Britannia