Portobello house with tower

This photo is available on Redbubble: Portobello Tower.

Blue main door

This photo is available on Redbubble: Behind the blue door.

Portobello Public Baths: upstairs

Portobello Public Baths were designed by Robert Morham, working for the Edinburgh City Architect’s Department of Edinburgh Council, in 1898, as part of the agreement that Portobello should become part of Edinburgh (on 1st November 1896). They were opened in 1901. Through most of the century they used to have a sea water pool and a fresh water pool (in the 1980s I used to belong to a sub-aqua club that used the sea water pool on Monday nights for training), but both pools are fresh water now. The Turkish baths were original to the building and are magnificent.

This photo is available on Redbubble: Shadows reflecting.

Water, water, everywhere, and not a drop to drink

This drinking fountain was built about 1870, and closed in the 1950s due to vandalism.

This photo is available on Redbubble: Drinking Fountain by the Sea.

Redbubble is celebrating their 100,000th anniversary (100 000 pieces sold and shipped!) by offering all buyers free shipping for the next week… and all sellers twice the money they normally receive. The coupon code to receive the free shipping offer is 100000masterpieces – you just enter this during the checkout process to receive the free shipping offer. Click on this red button to go directly to my Redbubble profile – but the free shipping applies whoever you buy from, until one minute to midnight on Thursday 30th October.

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Looking along the Promenade

The Scottish Water pumping station at Joppa, at the far end of the Promenade, was the last one to be built in the Edinburgh area, and it’s an impressive building with circular stone steps down to the sea.

This photo is available on Redbubble: Looking along the Promenade.

Redbubble is celebrating their 100,000th anniversary (100 000 pieces sold and shipped!) by offering all buyers free shipping for the next week… and all sellers twice the money they normally receive. The coupon code to receive the free shipping offer is 100000masterpieces – you just enter this during the checkout process to receive the free shipping offer. Click on this red button to go directly to my Redbubble profile – but the free shipping applies whoever you buy from, until one minute to midnight on Thursday 30th October.

If you’d like to choose your own customised calendar of photos from Looking at Edinburgh, check out It’s Edinburgh, but is it Art?

Reflecting Bellfield Street

A typical Portobello terraced house reflecting in a car sunroof.

This photo is available on Redbubble: Reflecting House.

Coastal Edinburgh: Shadows falling on the sand

Late autumn afternoon on Portobello beach, the sun behind the buildings all along the Promenade.

This photo is available on Redbubble: Promenade Shadows.

Backgreen by the sea

This photo is available on Redbubble: Backgreen by the sea.

Coastal Edinburgh: the Promenade

The street that faces the sea at Portobello that is called the Promenade on the city maps (Google Maps link) is reached from the end of Kings Road, turn left.

But if, at the end of Kings Road, you turn right, there is a broad, quiet, pedestrian-only pathway (bikes allowed) along which you can walk, with the sea on your left and houses and chip shops and a swimming pool (and amusement parks!) on your right, as far along as where Coillesdene Drive meets the Joppa Road. (Google maps link) It’s a great walk.

There are places for children to play:

Coastal Edinburgh: Portobello beach

The beach at Portobello is brownish, gritty sand – comfortable enough to lie out on in the sun, and excellent for building sandcastles. It is so frequently trodden – city beach – that above the high tide mark, I don’t recall ever seeing it smooth.

The sea wall is high above the beach, and there are cobbled ramps down to the sand.

This photo is available on Redbubble: Ramp down to the beach.