A Travel Log - The UK Casket Tour - Day 1

Explaining the first day after handing out the daily sheets
and name tags

I have been asked by many people to blog about the UK Casket Tour.  I almost hesitate as I don't want to create demand as I can't handle it with supply.  But I know there are many for which this is out of reach and who would enjoy the stories and pictures.

We started out by meeting up in Edinburgh in the hotel for a nice walk of the city followed by tea in the striking castle, perched on the rocks.  Our hotel had an amazing view of the castle from the breakfast room which we heartily enjoyed every day!

Everyone was given name tags made from Shutterfly from pictures off my stumpwork mirror (We repurposed luggage tags and gave them the

Name tags that double
as luggage tags later

leather strap for later for their bags).  The ladies got the Queen's feet

You have to start out right with a High Tea!

View from Breakfast Room

and the men the King's.  There was also a set of luggage tags with everyone's name and address to help us organize the transfers.  I do recommend these - you can get them in two sizes and use any picture you have.  Pretty sweet!

Frog Purse on display.  Link to collections photos 

After the castle tea, we made it down the hill to our bus driver, Ian, who took us over to Hollyroodhouse Palace, a royal castle.  The tour was lovely but we all knew that in the Mary Queen of Scotts room there was a casket and in the Mary Queen of Scotts Outer Cabinet at the end of the tour - there was 17th century needlework on display - including another casket and many yummy smalls.  So we must have looked like hungry locusts descending when we all burst into that room and smooched our noses against the glass!  Our first two caskets of the trip!  If you want to share along with us, check out this link at the Royal Collection to see an animated version of the casket in the case.   This plays on computers in the palace interactively.  The .gif works on Flash so you can't see it on an iPad.  If you are on a regular computer, slowly place your cursor over a lock area or pull and if you see a little hand vs the arrow, you can click and it will open.  Very cool!  The lid opens, the left and then right door opens, the bottom drawer and the left most drawer.  Objects in there were on display.  If you click on the left most drawer again, it will come out.  Then you can do the same to the next drawer on the right and so on.  Make sure to click on the vertical spacer between the two right drawers - click on it several times.... Keep on exploring slowly with the cursor to see if the panel slides out... it does.  Do the drawers open?

We saw the frog purse and this was wonderful because we ended up seeing several more during our tour in collections and it was great to compare and contrast their construciton.  We headed back to the hotel and pretty much hit the hay as so many of us had just flown in!

Royal Collection Casket on display at Hollyroodhouse Palace.  Link to more pictures