Edinburgh - visiting one of my favourite towers

I know you just come here for tourist advice. Well, I had a little bit of time in Edinburgh recently, and made the most of it.

On the chilly morning, before driving further up north, I walked until I saw an interesting tower. Well, once I'd seen it, I had to go there. It turned out to be the Nelson Monument in Calton Hill.

And you can climb it! It's a fairly strenuous spiral staircase, and a fantastic view.

Here's my photo. It's been severely dressed up with Snapseed, the app I use to fix photos that are too dark or whatever. I climbed to where that man is.

See the big ball on top of the tower? It's partly obscured. The ball has a real job. At 1pm every day, it gets hoisted up, and drops. That's a visible signal to ships at sea, important for navigation. At least, it was important, back before we had GPS navigation. But they have restored it, so the ball drops again! I was there way before 1pm, so I didn't get to see that.

From up there I could see Holyrood Castle, Arthur's Seat, and Scottish Parliament. And I got to spot lots of birds (birdwatching is a cool holiday hobby, it gets you looking around properly).