A lovely weekend in Edinburgh enjoying Saughton Park and the Colinton Tunnel

We've had a lovely weekend here in Edinburgh. We took a trip to Saughton Park, which is around a mile from where we live.

The park has some lovely gardens and a hot house, although the hot house was closed when we were there. We've been having some lovely weather, and the flowers are really out in bloom, making for some lovely views around the gardens.

It was quite nice wandering around checking out all the flowers - there are so many out in bloom at the moment.

At the centre of the park is this lovely old Victorian Band Stand. I've never seen it used for bands - but its still pretty impressive to see.

One of the gardeners has certainly been having fun with the hedges - sorry about the pic quality. I must have moved while taking it.

The gardens and hot house are sort of hidden from view in the Park. We passed it numerous times when we first moved back to Edinburgh, not realising that these lovely gardens were here !

A river also runs around one side of the park, and I've known that its a place to see Kingfishers - which I'd never seen before. As we were walking back to the car I decided to have one last look to see if there was one there on the river - and there was ! I was amazed - they are stunning birds. It moved so fast that I had no chance of getting a pic of it. They have a stunning golden orange breast and are then bright blue everywhere else - such beautiful birds !

We certainly enjoyed the park, but its not huge, so we decided to go and see the Colinton Tunnel as well.

The tunnel is from an old dis-used city commuter rail line that was probably abolished in the 1960s. It is part of a walking and cycle path now.

The tunnel was turned over to artists for decoration as part of a community project. The artworks inside are quite amazing !

Its takes a few minutes to walk through and so there is a decent amount to see.

Quite a lot of the pictures are showing Scottish themes like the Highland Cow and Clydesdale Horse above.

And of course there is a Piper in full highland dress !

Considering how good many of the pics in the tunnel are I was quite surprised to find this face in one of the larger scenes - I could have done that !

The tunnel is really impressive, and I think its a lovely idea and really does brighten up the route. It attracts quite a lot of visitors, which isnt a surprise.

It really was lovely to get out and see both the park and the tunnel. We also topped the weekend off by going to see the musical 'Sunshine on Leith' this evening. Its a musical set in Edinburgh to the music of the Proclaimers. It was the first time we had seen it, and it was awesome - I cant recommend it enough.

That was a great way to round of the weekend, and now we are settling down and getting ready for monday.

All the best from Scotland - I hope you've had a great weekend too !