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Edinburgh

We tend to forget that this fascinating city, with a vast store of history, beautiful streets to walk around, and quite a few free assets such as the Botanical Gardens and Arthur's Seat, is almost on our doorstep - well, an hour and a half away by train, to be precise. We're both keen to avoid the crowds of the Festival, and Easter last year was pretty busy, so this year we timed our visit a couple of weeks after Easter, at the end of April.
Something we hadn't seen before was Mary King's Close, a sobering reminder of the lives that many people had to endure a few centuries ago. More photos of the city in general on my Flickr pages.

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