to Edinburgh

The 60 mile ride to Edinburgh has beautiful scenery and the weather is good.  Our last hotel for this tour is near the airport which means it's on the other side of Edinburgh.  Many of us are concerned about riding through downtown with all of the traffic so several schemes are devised.  One is to walk a mile through the busiest section.  Other alternatives involve trains. Glenn and Patrice and Brenda and I are riding along on a cycle route; at about mile 40 we pass a train station.  What is this? It's not the station we're looking for.  But we discover there is a train to Edinburgh Waverly (main) station in 12 minutes.  We quickly buy tickets at the kiosk. Luckily two of the four train cars are each equipped for 2 bikes.  We're in the city in 15 minutes.  The information desk tells us that our next train to the airport leaves from track 12; but it may not carry 4 bikes.  Fortunately it does and we're near the hotel in 5 minutes.  So close but so far; we're within a half a mile of the hotel and have difficulty finding it.  Several locals help us.  UK trains are great - clean, efficient, smooth -  although scheduling is complex since they decentralized many years ago.  Photos along the way are shown below.

Although the ride is over, the blog is not.  There is a large epi-blog to follow.