By Richard Fitzwilliams
The Royal Yacht Britannia
.M. The Queen once
said that the one place
where she could truly relax
was on her yacht. The royal
family used the yacht for
state visits abroad, for
honeymoons and also for
their annual summer holiday
to the Western Isles in
Scotland. At Britannia’s
decommissioning in 1997,
the Queen was moved to
tears. She was subsequently
berthed in Leith and since
1998 has had nearly five
million visitors, currently
being Britain’s third most
popular tourist attraction.
The yacht is owned by a nonprofit making charity, The Royal
Yacht Britannia Trust, and the
revenue from visitors goes
towards the maintenance of
the vessel.
Leith is roughly half an hour’s
journey by bus from the centre
of Edinburgh and the visitor
enters through a rather
charmless shopping centre.
Happily the way public access
has b