The day starts with a beautiful sunrise. Steve just has to take some photos to share. The sea provides a perfect stage to view the changing sky, which totally dominates and is also reflected in the water.
By 1:30, we are sailing quite near the east coast of Scotland. Time for another photo:
Well, of course we know that our plans in Edinburgh have been set aside, and that the ship is to dock in Rosyth rather than Leith. That port has been turned over to security and military, who are making preparations for Queen Elizabeth’s cortege.
In an interesting piece of irony, that cortege, which is traveling by car down the coast from Aberdeen, is due to arrive at 4pm, precisely the time of our previously scheduled arrival in Leith.
Destination services is doing an amazing job. As anyone can imagine, the city is preparing for enormous crowds to come to honor the queen, who will lie in state for twenty-jour hours here in St. Giles Cathedral. Thousands and thousands will come to pay their respects to their queen.
For that reason, every available bus is booked. As of noon yesterday, the only available transportation is a half dozen mini-vans available to take people to the railroad station for a train to Edinburgh. But Destination Services are a tenacious lot. Arrangements are in flux, but we expect them to continue to evolve. Our logistics experience is paying off. We actually understand the difficulties and challenges, and appreciate how difficult it is for them. It is what it is.
As of about 1pm, we are traveling down the Firth of Forth toward Rosyth. The weather is actually warm, so Steve takes a 3-mile walk on the fitness track. Cathy, who has not been feeling quite up to par, gets in a good health nap. She awakens right after we pass under three bridges that cross the Firth of Forth, including a world-famous railroad bridge. Steve is, of course, thrilled and impressed at seeing this structure up close and takes way, way too many pictures.
He is so thrilled that he insists on including this Wikipedia information on this incredible structure: “The Forth Bridge is a cantilever railroad bridge across the Firth of Forth in the east of Scotland, 9 miles (14 kilometres) west of central Edinburgh. Completed in 1890, it is considered a symbol of Scotland (having been voted Scotland’s greatest man-made wonder in 2016), and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was designed by English engineers Sir John Fowler and Sir Benjamin Baker. It is sometimes referred to as the Forth Rail Bridge (to distinguish it from the adjacent Forth Road Bridge), although this has never been its official name.
“Construction of the bridge began in 1882 and it was opened on 4 March 1890 by the Duke of Rothesay, the future Edward VII. The bridge carries the Edinburgh-Aberdeen line across the Forth between the villages of South Queensferry and North Queensferry and has a total length of 8,094 feet (2,467 m). When it opened it had the longest single cantilever bridge in the world, until 1919 when the Quebec Bridge in Canada was completed. It continues to be the world’s second-longest single cantilever span, with a span of 1,709 feet (521 m).
“The bridge and its associated railway infrastructure are owned by Network Rail.” Network Rail Limited isthe owner and infrastructure manager of most of the railway network in Great Britain.
Cathy awakens and turns on the BBC. In a way, we feel very privileged to be where we are right now. We are indeed in the United Kingdom, which is going through historic change. Their queen of seventy years has passed. They have a new king and, at the same time, a new prime minister. We were in the Orkney Islands, a part of Scotland just yesterday. Our guide quietly and politely did feel it important to remind us visitors of what the people there are going through at that very moment.
As mentioned before, we are also able to follow everything on the BBC system, not BBC America, not American media. It has given us a much better understanding of the history we are living through, and we feel very fortunate. We actually feel the special relationship that America and Americans have with the people and government of Great Britain.
The ship docks at 3:15pm. Of course, we have had the television on much of the time we are in our stateroom, and we learn that the cortege is due to cross the bridge we can see from our balcony at 3:45pm. We are actually following their progress moment to moment on the television, and, at the same time, looking out at the bridge to catch a sight of the cortege with our own eyes. It’s a little surreal.
And, sure enough, there it is. There is a BBC helicopter filming it all, and it pans the harbor and our ship comes in view. For a few moments, we are truly connected with the historical goings on in real time. It’s an amazing – and, frankly, exciting – time to be this close to an event of world importance.
We follow the progress of the cortege through the streets of Edinburgh to Holyrood Castle, where Queen Elizabeth and her family will be until a royal procession to St. Giles Cathedral tomorrow at 2pm for a special service, after which she will lie in state for the twenty-four hours when the public is invited to pay their respects. All of this taking place a mere fourteen miles away from where we are right now.
