'neath ancient Roslin waits .......

Day 8, Friday

We were up, packed and ready to head off, bright and early on Friday morning.

We had one last big adventure planned before finally making our way back home.

"The Holy Grail ‘neath ancient Roslin waits.
The blade and chalice guarding o’er Her gates.
Adorned in masters’ loving art, She lies.
She rests at last beneath the starry skies."

I loved reading Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code book, in fact, I've really enjoyed reading all of his books.

A good few years ago now I made a trip to Paris, with my brother, on what we called 'The Davinci Code Trail'.  We visited The Louvre and looked at all of the paintings and took pictures of the final spot in the film.  We also visited the San Sulpice Church and followed the Rose Line.

I've always wanted to visit Rosslyn Chapel, it's on my list of 50 things to do before I'm 60. 

Unbeknownst to me, my lovely husband had picked up on my wish to visit here and when he was last up in Scotland working, he'd sussed out where it was.

As it happened it wasn't even really a detour from our route home so this was where we were headed on the Friday morning.

We drove down from The Cairngorms towards Edinburgh and crossed the Forth before wending our way to Rosslyn Chapel, which is just South of Edinburgh.

We parked up and headed towards the Chapel.  We couldn't see that much from the front, but decided to have a walk right round the outside before heading into the recently built visitor centre and into the Chapel grounds.

I wanted to see the view that I'd seen in the film, where you got to see the full Chapel on the top of the hill, in all it's glory.  We headed down to the left of the visitor centre and found a small path, which ended up taking us right round the Chapel.  We are so glad we did this.  We definitely got the best overall views of the Chapel from the outside and it's only a short walk.  From our point of view if you are visiting, you must walk round the outside of the site .... you are missing out if you don't.

Having had our wander we headed into the visitor centre and into the Chapel grounds.  From inside there are some good views to be had of the outside of the Chapel, though there isn't that much greenery to add interest and there are lots of people wandering about, so it is hard to get a good shot.

When we arrived there was a 'tour' taking place of the inside of the Chapel, but we were told we could just go in and look around anyway.

After having a good look around the outside we decided to head in.  We were really surprised, the place was jam packed full with people filling all of the pews and the seating around the outside. The guide was in full flow and, I have to say, sounded like she'd done a really good talk.  She was bursting with enthusiasm and passion and we wished we could wait for the next tour.

She was nearly at the end of her flow and we soon got chance to wander around inside with the rest of the throng.

You can't take photos inside but the place is beautiful, with every piece of stone covered in some or other meaningful carving.  We saw the 'starry skies' mentioned in the riddle and we went into the crypt ... though I think quite a bit of artistic licence has been used when adapting what this looked like for the film!

Overall I would guess we stayed for about an hour, which was just enough to have a real good look around.  There is a cafe in the visitor centre, but we decided not to eat here, but to head back off home and find something along the way .... maybe another visit to Shap Services was in order.

I am so glad we visited.  The place definitely has a magical and intriguing feel about it.  Who really knows what will have taken place here over the years, we can only really leave that to our imagination.

Before we headed for home, Martin succumbed in the gift shop and bought this cheeky little green man that I'm sure we will find a good home for in the garden at number 27.

It was a lovely end to another lovely week's holiday, now point us in the direction of the M6!!