Tourism

The "Royal Mile". Once the heart of government and commerce in Edinburgh, now most of the people and activity here involve tourism.


... and Edinburgh has oodles of tourists, Spanish and Italians in particular.




You might think a cheesy tourist place like this would have a Scot wearing a kilt behind the counter, but no! It was run by a Polish woman. (Pictured here on the left smoking a cigarette.)



... She was saving up her wages to study for a masters in Naval Architecture back in Poland.
Many of the workers in hotels and restaurants we met were Eastern European. The UK is part of the European Community and there is a pretty free flow of workers from poorer to richer countries.