Poor Mary

The first stop of our route today was the Hollyrood Palace (with some more Italian baroque art exhibition), which to my surprise is nowadays situated within the city just next to the buildings of the Scottish Parialment and Dynamic Earth, both a mere 25 minutes walk downhill from where we live.

Since reading Antonia Fraser's biography of the Queen of Scots and then watching one of my favourite actresses Samantha Morton playing the queen in Elisabeth: The Golden Age by Shekhar Kapur I was really keen to see Queen's private chambers in the Palace. I guess I might get qualified as some kind of a stalking fan as I was gasping with excitment at seeing every bit of her personal belongings (a pomander, some strawberry red hair, a cat and a mouse embroidered by the Queen's hand with an awkward writing a catte on it), infamous little chamber from where Rizzio was dragged out and stabbed 56 times in the presence of a heavily praegnant Queen - it were actually just two little rooms in the whole of the palace but they made me start reading 758 pages of Fraser's book with great pleasure all over again!