The coffin of Queen Elizabeth II, draped in the flag, was slowly processed through the rugged Scottish countryside on Sunday in a journey that will last for days from the beloved Balmoral Castle to London. Mourners crowded the bridges and city streets and lined the roads and highways to watch, some throwing flowers in tribute to the Queen who ruled for 70 years.

The funeral procession included a convoy of seven cars from Balmoral, where the Queen died on Thursday at the age of 96, on a six-hour journey through Scottish towns to Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh. The late Queen's coffin was wrapped in the Royal Standard of Scotland and covered with a wreath of flowers from the garden, including sweet peas, one of the Queen's favorite things.

The procession was also a massive event for Scotland as the United Kingdom observes days of mourning for its longest-reigning monarch, the only one the British have ever known. Hours before the coffin’s arrival in Edinburgh, the Scottish capital, people came out early to claim space behind police barriers. By the afternoon, crowds ranged between 7 and 8 people in various places, eager to participate in such a historic occasion.

The first village the procession passed through was Ballater, where hundreds of people watched in silence and some threw flowers in front of the car as it passed. In every Scottish town and village the convoy passed, they were met with silent scenes of respect where people mostly stood in silence, some applauded politely, and others pointed their phone cameras at the passing cars. Also in Aberdeenshire, farmers lined the road with dozens of tractors.

Before reaching the Scottish capital, the procession traveled through what is effectively a royal memory lane — passing sites steeped in the history of Windsor House. Among these is Dyce, where the Queen officially opened the UK’s first North Sea oil pipeline in 1975, and Fife, near the University of St Andrews, where her grandson Prince William, now Prince of Wales, studied and met his future wife, Catherine.