Mike Laycock enjoys a right royal visit to Edinburgh and the Royal Yacht Britannia.

IT'S the one place where the Queen felt she could really relax. She also used it to entertain statesmen from Reagan and Clinton to Mandela and Churchill. But since the Royal Yacht Britannia was decommissioned in the 1990s, ordinary subjects have been able to step on board and gain a unique insight into the life of the monarch. It's an intimate peek into HM's private life which I don't think you get in a tour of Buckingham Palace.

I traveled with my family up to Edinburgh on a GNER train - they are fast, frequent and comfortable services and the only realistic way of having a day out in the Scottish capital - to visit the yacht.

On arrival in Edinburgh, it was a mere 20-minute journey on the number 22 bus from Princes Street, just outside the station, to "Ocean Terminal" in Leith. There is a huge shopping mall which you walk through to get to the Royal Yacht Britannia berthed alongside.

The yacht, owned nowadays by a non-profit making charity, is one of Scotland's biggest tourist attractions.

On board, you don't just see the state dining and drawing rooms, where some of the biggest state leaders of the 20th century were entertained in style. This is also the only place in the world where you can see the bedroom of a living British monarch. A single bed in a carpeted bedroom, luxurious but not ostentatiously so, where HM must have slept for scores of nights over more than four decades.

Elsewhere, you see the study where the Queen would spend hours dealing with state documents, the deck where the Duke used to do a spot of painting and, below decks and in stark contrast to the sumptuous Royal quarters, the cramped bunks where the yachtsmen and Royal Marines slept.

Throughout the tour, audio handsets explain what you are seeing. I found it fascinating. This is highly recommended.

Back in the city centre, we had time to take a look at some of this fantastic city's many tourist attractions, including the Camera Obscura in the Old Town, where you can see views of the city through a Victorian "Eye in the Sky" but also enjoy great optical illusions and the largest display of holograms in Europe.

We also visited the National Gallery of Scotland, just below the Old Town, where I was entranced by works by some of the great Impressionists, including Van Gogh, Monet and Pissaro. From there, it was a five minute walk back to the station to catch the train back to York.

Fact file

Royal Yacht Britannia: Open daily 9.30am to 4.30 pm until the end of October, and from 10am to 3.30pm November-March. Full wheelchair access to all decks. Admission: Adults: £9, senior citizens: £7, children 5-17, £5, family: £25. Further information: 0131 555 5566.

Camera Obscura: Open daily. Tel: 0131 226 3709.

GNER: Advance purchase return fares start from only £22 return - to book, visit http://www.gner.co.uk, call Telesales on 08457 225 225 or visit any National Rail station.

Updated: 16:38 Friday, October 28, 2005