The second city we saw in New Zealand was Dunedin. We are still not totally sure how it is pronounced. Our good friend Gillian would give us the correct answer. Anyway, the weather has been awful and we did sleep a bit late so city sightseeing was the best thing to do and leave the seals, the albatrosses and the penguins for the next day, hoping it would be better. 

So, Dunedin, as it sounds, is Scottish. Its name is derived from the Gaelic name for Edinburgh. It has a funny city centre arranged in two octagons one inside the other. In the centre is the statue of Robbie Burns. We found out that he is Scotland's favourite poet and it seems that among the first permanent settlers was a nephew of him, so Dunedin is proud of him (the poet not the nephew - does that make sense for you?). Around the poet's statue the pavement has plaques with the names of the most famous writers of New Zealand and a small sentence from their works. We were embarrassed not to know any one of them, but still that writer's walk was a nice idea. 

The jewel of Dunedin is its train station. Inside there are mosaic floors and stained glass windows featuring trains, but the building from outside is really impressive. With a combination of lava stones, limestone and granite a really imposing architecture, we even noticed it while we passed Dunedin during the previous evening.

To finish our walk in the city (and trying to avoid a bit of the rain), we visited the local Toitu Otago Settlers Museum (note that entrance is for free). As the one in Christchurch it contained some art from the local Maori, but not so impressive. The nice part of this museum was things they have from the first settlers, such as carriages, bicycles and clothes. It also has an awesome collection of cars and a trip in time for electric appliances and computers. They have recreated a sample of a typical livingrooom and a youngster's bedroom of the 1970s and 1990s right next to each other. You can see some of the things that caught our eye in the pictures below.

And that was Dunedin!