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!

Holy Island and Bamburg Castle

Our adventures started today at the beautiful Holy Island of Lindisfarne. This unique place is a tidal island which means you can access the island twice during a 24 hour period of time as the tides will come in an cover the paved road linking the island to the mainland. A monestry was built there in the late 600's AD and was attacked several times by the Vikings. It survived until our friend Henry VIII dissolved all the monestries and in the 1550's a castle was built on top of this volcanic mound from the stones of the destroyed priory. In 1901, a gentleman by the name of Edward Hudson who was the founder of Country Life magazine bought it from the royals and turned it into a country home. Later he gave it to the National Trust hence how we found it in our membership booklet.

The tides had just gone down around 9:15AM and we arrived at 9:30AM so it was pretty cool to still see water up very, very close to and on the road yet. I do wish we could have seen it over the road but with two little ones it's hard to get going that early in the morning. We parked in a car park just outside the village and then we walked on through the village towards the castle but I loved all the signs posted to warn people to check the tides schedule or you could get stuck!!! There was a little bus you could take but we quite enjoyed the mile walk through the little village (population 160) to the castle by the sea.

We had a little bit of time before the castle opened up so we walked around the pennisula a bit and climbed up on the rock mounds.

Our family picture up on the balcony of the castle looking back at the tiny little fishing village that probably makes most of it's money from tourism as I think over 650,000 visitors a year come here.

Just outside the castle and along the shore of the village are all of these little sheds. They are actually the hulls of old boats that have been cut in half, turned over and closed up on the open end. This is apparently a tradition carried out for many, many years with old boats that have been retired. Talk about "being green"...this is recycling to the max! The National Trust has little lockers in them so people can store back packs and oversized bags along with pushchairs as they aren't allowed in the castle.

Inside the castle was AMAZING. I so could have moved right in and lived there. It so reminded me of the little cottages we got to look at when we were on our househunting here. When you first walk in you are taken back by this large fireplace with a very decorative painting with what looks like a compass on it, but the arrow is actually attached to a wind vane on top of the castle and it indicates the direction the wind is blowing inside.

This was the dining room and eventhough you are surrounded by cold stone the decor was warm and rustic. All the bedrooms were filled with original furniture and just beautifully decorated for the early 1900's.

A fun thing that Addie got to do was a little kid's hunt. The former owner loved the cello so all around the house there were little toy cello's hidden and if you found one you were to write down which room you found it in. Kevin helped her out a bit, but it was a great way to keep her interested and moving about in all the rooms. It is so fun to be able to do that sort of thing with her now.

After an amazing tour through the castle we made our way along the coast a bit and checked out all the boats. There were piles of lobster and crab cages all over and we even found a few dried up star fish as we snuck around them.

Next we made our way along a foot path back up towards the village to check out the old monastery. Funny enough Lindisfarne Priory was an English Heritage site so we were able to walk right in with our membership with them....bonus!

Again Kevin and I don't know why but we really, really like the old ruins of castles and priories and such almost more than that fully functional stately homes and castles. Guess it's just a lot less hectic with the kids as they can just run all over the place and get a real feel for the history (well they have no idea about the history other than stone can hurt when you fall on it).

We found all sorts of fun little places throughout the priory. I still think it's funny that monks essentially invented beer and that they made it all the time and even got a ration of like one beer a day. I had found the "Brew House" while wondering around and Harrison found his way into the pit that probably held a cauldron to brew the stuff in. Other funny things to find are the toilets which were often a hole in a slab that had a small stream running under it. Kevin and I agreed that the coolest part of this place was the arch that remained over the main sanctuary. What a strong will it had to survive as the rest of the church was in ruins.

We spent only 3 hours on the island as that's all we paid for parking and we had another castle to get to for our afternoon. By the time we left, the water had receded even more but the signs were so funny to see eventhough they were dead serious. I could see how people could be tempted to cross the 100 yards with a bit of water on it but I'm not going to try it today.

We actually headed back south 1/2 hour to Bamburgh Castle. This mighty looking fortress was quite impressive on the outside and we could actually see it from Lindisfarne castle in the far distance.

We actually found a place to park up in the town centre and walked to the castle not knowing what the parking situation would be like close by. Along the way we saw what looked like croquet fields, but the sticks and loops were set up all different. Guys wearing what looked like cricket uniforms were out playing...the Brits sure do take leisure like sports to the extreme...hee hee.

Some of that state rooms inside the castle were pretty amazing. The King's Hall was huge and had this amazing wood slatted ceiling and decorated beautifully.

We have been at many, many castles and most of them seem to be very similar, but again I like to find what's unique about each. One cool thing I found here was a few early appliances/tools that we use and take for granted like a deep freeze freezer made of wood and lead lining. Also a really early washing machine and this wooden vacuum cleaner.

In the grounds of the castle a group who does re-enactments of were showing off some of the ways people practiced different trades in the early centuries. This woman showed us how to "drop spin" wool. Instead of a spinning wheel they would actually create thick tread by using this tool to pull and spin the wool. She said it created a finer wool than even a spinning wheel there for making finer garments.

This woman was actually talking about early mid-wifery and early practices of how women gave birth. After some of the stories she told I really appreciated the modern day doctors we had and that wether it be an epidural or gas and air, we had some other type of pain relief than some old man bishop praying over you that the pain would subside and having to smell some awful smelling concoction to scare the baby out.

They also had some games and toys that children would have played with back in those days so Kevin jumped in with the kids to play them out. This game looked kind of like lawn darts with large paddles.

There was also an aviation type museum there which Kevin and the kids found quite interesting. I admired a few bits here and there like this plane cockpit that they found parts scattered all over and tried piecing them all together. The silhouette behind it actually gives a good idea of what it should look like. Kevin found an engine of all things "Mr. Engineer" that apparently had completely melted the cams (whatever that means) and had me take a picture of it.

Addison liked sitting at the big modern day "shoot" and pretend to shoot down the enemy....which was probably me as she wasn't too happy when I told her it was time to move on out.

Back outside we checked out the loads of canons set up on the castle walls and have probably been instrumental in the castles defenses for many, many years.

As we made our way north toward Scotland now we pass by the famous bridge spanning the River Tweed at Berwick-upon-Tweed. I saw it out of the corner of my eye and just bearly was able to get the camera out to take a picture of it, but I wanted to remember that I at least saw it since it was on the tea towel I just bought as a souvenir from Northumberland.

Yeah!!!! We finally made it to Scotland!!!!

Loved it that we saw this sign just after getting into the border!!! Is driving worse here than in England????

We made our way into the heart of Edinburgh (prounced Edin-bra for all you Yankees). I had found this absolutely amazing place call the Holyrood ApartHotel which we got a two bedroom apartment with a full kitchen and two bathrooms to stay for the next two nights. It was so nice and even a bit bigger than the place we first stayed in when we moved to Peteroborough. Other nice bonuses were that we were located only 100 yards from the Royal Mile where all the action is at and then we were literally only about 100 ft from a brand new Pizza Express!!!! Our first night's stay included a breakfast hamper which gave us about 2 days worth of breakfast with a whole loaf of bread, assorted jams, cereals, and then the fridges was stocked with juice, milk, butter and more! The kids were hungry so they made themselves at home and had a big bowl of cornflakes while they watched Peppa Pig!!! It really is nice to be able to go on a holiday in a different country that is so much like the country you already live in for once and have English-speaking cartoons for the kids!!!

Alnwick and Dunstanburgh Castles - NE England

Our first stop on our adventure was Alnwick Castle (prounounced All-nick). We choose this particular place because it was the filming site of Robin Hood Prince of Thieves starring Kevin Costner and since I loved this movie as a kid it was a must see while living in England. They used it to portray Maid Marion's home. After I started researching the castle I found that it also was the filming location for Harry Potter and Elizabeth which were a bonuses as well.

The castle fortress is pretty amazing. It is the second largest inhabited castle in all of England. The Duke and Duchess of Northumberland still live there and it has stayed in the Percy family for over 700 years (can you imagine property staying with the same family for that long...wow!), but it was thought that the castle was probably built in the before the 1090's. Outside the castle there were amazing patches of daffodils in full bloom which helped brighten up the gloomy, misty day.

While the weather was decent we walked around the walls of the castle and Addison found some canons about her size. She started calling them "shoots" as that is what they DO, but not what they are...we just went along with it.

As the weather turned on us a bit, we headed into a few of the towers that were set up as mini archeological and weaponry museums. This one had loads of wooden swords, powder horns, moulds for gun shots and armor. It was actually pretty cool to see how they made all of it.

Sorry to all you Harry Potter fans, I have to admit that I've only seen the very first HP movie and have never read any of the books but I was pretty impressed to see one scene portrayed on the castle wall..the first flying lesson.

Then I had Kevin and Harrison pose in front of the very same wall that they shot the scene at. Very cool!!!! We took some time to walk through the state rooms of the castle and they were pretty amazing. I loved their library as it had a little catwalk up around the upper level. The coolest part was the huge flat screen TV that was set up with a gaming system. The family obviously uses this room a lot and it was funny to see it being "lived in." They don't allow you to take pictures inside the state rooms so I don't have any to show you.

In a small court yard they have the "Knight's Quest" set up for small children and it was great for the kids. They got to dress up as medieval knights or princesses. They got to do sword fighting, crayon rubbings, dance with a May pole, sit with a dragon, and more. Kevin helped Addison with some archery lessons.

We prepared the kiddos for a dual - helmets, swords, sheilds and all. They did chase each other around but got a little carried away with the swords on each other. Both were crying at some point, but they looked so cute that we just let them keep going.

To keep the peace, Kevin stepped it to defend dear Addison's honor and fight the grueling Prince Harrison.

We even got to sit on throne's with a "real" dragon.

One of the highlights for Kevin and I was that appearance of two Harry Potter starts - "Hogrid" (Hagrid) and "Dumbledare" (Dumbledore). They did a fun little comedy and magic show that was entertaining for the kids and parents alike.

In the afternoon we headed towards the ruins of Dunstanburgh Castle, a National Trust site near the town of Craster in Northumberland. We parked at the small carpark just on the edge of town and walked out in the middle of a field (a public pathway) about 1 1/2 miles to get out to the castle.

Addison thought it was pretty cool that we were walking right out where the sheep were. She wanted to go up and touch all the baby lambs, but we were quick to explain that mumma sheep were very protective of their babies and if she didn't want to get butted over she better stay clear.

Earl Thomas of Lancaster began construction on the castle in 1313, but he was executed in 1322 when it was nearly completed. John Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, improved the castle later in the 14th century. The main part of the castle that remains are these massive D-shaped towers of the gatehouse which are thought to at one time be about 4 stories tall.

Addison and I climbed up the spiral stair case of the keep to look back down at Kevin below. The wind was pretty gusty but it was an amazing view of the pastures, hills, wash

Addison poses as we get a shot of the back of the main keep of the castle. She just love climbing all over the ruins. Funny to think that this place was actually someone's home at one time. It was said that this castle wasn't really a crucial stronghold for England border protection from the Scots. It actually got destroyed more during the War of the Roses which was domestic fighting between the houses of Lancaster and York for the throne of England. Over time as it decayed, stones were stolen from the site to be used for other places in the area.

It was pretty amazing to see the sea swell in and out at the base of the castle. After being at the touristy Alnwick castle in the morning it was great to get out into the tranquility of this place. It does take a little bit more imagination to picture the way things used to be at a place like this but there is something about it's openness that makes you feel free.

Across the way along the wall was the Constables Tower. It was three stories tall with a single room on each level...seemed like a huge structure for just three rooms!

Harrison had been in quite a stroppy mood all morning and we were glad that he managed to get a nap as we walked out to the castle. But he woke up and only wanted Daddy to hold him and he made dad carry him for over a mile in one set position. Kevin was a good sport to keep the boy content but he took a much needed break at the rock wall at the edge of town before we headed back to the car. We headed off to our hotel which was just a little place off the A1...it was a super tiny room and not much to look at but it was a place to lay our heads for the night.