Sunshine on Leith

This afternoon we followed the Water of Leith Walkway in the other direction, down to Leith.  I love urban walkways that enable you forget that you're in the middle of a busy city and imagine you are out in the countryside.  The trees were in leaf and there was plenty of activity on the water - mallards, swans and goosanders.  Like the Bristol-Bath Path it's well used by walkers, runners and cyclists.

We emerged at The Shore.  It's an area of Edinburgh that has been highly gentrified with expensive fish restaurants lining the water and the former seaman's hostel transformed into a Malmaison hotel.  But the old Leith has thankfully not been completely eradicated, and pops up all over the place in council housing and old pubs.  It's a curious mixture of the old and the new and, like many areas of Edinburgh, very European in character. 

We followed a guide book walk around the historic backstreets and then out to Ocean Terminal, a monstrosity of a retail/leisure complex, which is also home to the royal yacht Britannia.  You won't be surprised to learn that we did no more than view her (him? it?) from the top floor of the shopping centre!

One of the nicest things was being engaged in conversation by two local men.  The first was admittedly the worse for drink, but helpfully pointed out a statue of Rabbie Burns, quoting from To a Mouse for good measure.   The second, George, caught us looking at the old State Cinema on Great Junction Road, an art deco building fallen into disrepair and in the process of being demolished.  He reassured us that the facade was to be preserved and then proceeded reminisce about his childhood and Leith and of the changes he had witnessed.  Both encounters were a reminder that a city is more than its buildings.  It's the people and their stories that make it, and breathe life into it.