Edinburgh, Scotland

We got started bright and early to see what we could see in Edinburgh!!! Our first stop was a large cemetery at the foot of the Calton Hill. It was filled with some large and amazing looking head stones but the sad part was that a large majority of them were knocked over or broken in half. Not sure what caused it but kind of a sad way to start the day even though it was quite interesting really.

We started making our way up the hill towards the castle on what is known as the Royal Mile which is really what it says it is. Its about a mile long stretch that reaches between the Edinburgh Castle and the Palace of Holyrood (the Queen's Scottish residence). Its full of shops and stores and is the touristy bit of town. We did see some interesting things along the way...

The People's Story...a newspaper office.

This looked interested, but not willing to try that one. It did spark and interesting conversation between Kevin and I about people's fascination with deep-frying the most unusal things.

After making our way half way up the hill, we took a look back. Most of Edinburg is made of these gray stoned building that even with the monochrome coloring has some very beautiful architecture.

Edinburgh Castle is amazingly large and quite the fortress. With our English Heritage membership were were actually able to get in for half price and we could have jumped the queues as well, but there were no lines at all so we got right in. This is the site for the world famous "Military Tatoo" a Scottish military band made up mainly of bagpipes that hold nightly concerts and marches throughout the month of August. It was something that Kevin and I hoped to see some day but not the most kid friendly event so we'll save it for some day down the road.

Up at the castle Addison had lots of fun trying out all the cool rides like "Guardsman's Station" and....

stone pony rides....

"Sit on the Wooden Stump" like Mary Queen of Scots did when she was little. Who knew how much adventure we would find is such a place. The only ride we didn't find was the "Moving Floor to See the Jewels." We went into see the Scottish Crown Jewels and it's display was just a little smaller than the one at The Tower of London and didn't have the nice moving floor to keep people moving along. The jewels were pretty cool and there is actually some stone seat that had been used for centuries for coronations of Scottish royalty that was just brought back to Edinburgh a few years ago as it had been in London for many, many years. Thanks to Lizzy II (Queen Elizabeth II - current queen) for returning it.

In all seriousness the castle was pretty cool because it had so many different aspects to it from being a royal home to a battle fortress to a prison and military barracks. This area here are beds that prisoners of war were kept. Straw beds or hanging cots down in what seemed to be the basement of the castle.

There was an old wooden door on display with carvings in it made by prisoners. The prisons housed common criminals in the early days along with state enemies, enemy soldiers, sailors, people accused of witch craft and more. Many public executions were actually held out on Castle Hill...the street just outside the castle. Some foreign prisoners were very creative and there was a display of things the prisoners made out of obscure items like a scale replica of some warship ship made of bits of scrap wood splinters. Guess they had nothing but time on their hands to fiddle around.

There was also a military prison there as well that didn't look too pleasant either, but not as bad as the prisoners of war. A nice wood planked bed and small stool for toilet and a large metal door to close you in. I got horribly clostiphobic inside them thinking about spending any amount of time in them...alone....so I let Addie play about in them instead.

The views from the castle out onto the city were absolutely amazing.

I thought this was classic, but this is actually a "pet cemetery"(brought back scary thoughts of the movie from when I was just a little kid), but pets of military persons are actually buried here.

It was a bit chilly that day and we got a spot of rain while up on the castle wall but we were all still happy to be there!!!

Again, the kids have a huge thing for the canons and since a slew of these young boys were climbing up and inside this big guy, Addison wanted to follow suit. Once we got her out to pose for a picture, Harrison got a bit curious as well to what was so interesting.

We checked out the National War Museum onsite as well and it was filled with loads of Scottish military uniforms and soldier-related items.

I still just get a kick out of the fact that men wear skirts here and most of all proud to do it during battle as well. Here are some of the old kilts worn.

The One O'Clock Gun was super cool. Almost everyday since 1861 a gun has shot off six days a week from the walls of the castle (except during the two world wars). It actually coincides with the dropping of a Time Ball on the Nelson Monument at 13:00 hours.

After seeing things from the castle we wanted a good look at it from the ground so we made our way down to the Princes' Street Gardens. I am just still amazing on how they built up this massive fortress on these jagged rocks and how did they know where to start out the footings to make everything level at the top (can you tell I am married to an engineer?)

Of course we had to take a little ice cream break.

This fountain in the park was just beautiful, but I died when I saw a sign next to it that said "No Bathing."

We also hit the jackpot by find a little play park for Addison Marie to have a bit of fun at. Unfortunately she was only half way through her ice cream so dad and I had to help her get it down so she could play. Poor little Harry slept through the whole play time.

We set out walking again to see some more of the city. This is the Scott Monument which was erected in memorial to the Scottish author Sir Walter Scott who wrote Ivanhoe, Rob Roy, and more famous books that I don't know. One thing I have found is that Scots are quite proud of their authors and poets to actually have large structures built in honor of them and national holidays (like Burn's Night.)

Loved this guy who was the doorman outside what looked like quite a posh Edinburgh hotel.

Now we were trying to figure out how Kevin's brother, Ryan, learned how to play the bagpipe and got a kilt, but then we realized it wasn't really him. It was crazy though how similar this fellow looks like Kevin's older brother with the red hair and all.

To end out our day we made it back to the end of the Royal Mile. I love the Scottish Parliament Building because it is very modern looking and I thought at first is was an art museum. We wondered why Scotland had it's own Parliament building since it was part of Great Britain and we thought ruled out of London, but I did some research and found out the whole story.

In 1707, the Kingdom of Scotland and the Kingdom of England, merged to become the Kingdom of Great Britian and the ruling power when the the parliament at Westminster in London. In 1998, the people of Scotland voted to approve a devolved legislation with reserved powers that Westminster approved. This means that Scotland was allowed to re-form a parliament that could control local issues like education, health, agriculture, and justice where as all other matters would be still be governed by the Parliament of Great Britian in London. They Scottish Parliament can debate Westminster on topics on in their control but not allowed to make any laws on things like national civil policy, trade, defense/national security, national lottery, broadcasting, etc. Essentially it's kind of like a state government in the US as far as I can tell.

Behind Harrison is an extinct volcano which is known as Arthur's Seat as it is the setting for the legends of King Arther. It's the highest peak of hills set around the city and a beautiful place to go hiking and walking up and around.

I pulled a surprise out of my bag for such an occasion of being at a park with no play equipment - bubbles!!!! The kids and Kevin had a jolly time blowing and chasing bubbles while we just hung out for a while.

This is the Palace of Holyrood and the Scottish home of the Queen. We didn't go inside but it looked quite beautiful!

We decided to do some Chinese takeaway tonight to mix things up and I think our heads were hungrier than our tummies because we ended up ordering enough to feed 6 adults!!! Plus we discovered that we have been totally spoilt with Min's cooking, my home cooking and the take away we get from Royal China in Werrington because this was nothing in comparison.

Just a quick picture of the kitchen we got to enjoy while in our apartment. Now for a good night's sleep and a trip to the zoo in the morning...a surprise for the kiddos!