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Published: June 22nd 2007
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Ah...beautiful Scotland. Rolling hills, quaint villages, gorgeous Edinburgh, bagpipe music. It really is a stunning country (what we saw of it in 2 days anyway).
We arrived home last night from our short trip to Edinburgh. We drove up on Tuesday evening and arrived at about 9:30pm. First stop...bars of course. We stopped in at one called 3 Sisters which looked to be quite busy when we drove past it, only to discover that it wasn't really once you got inside. So we moved onto a bar called Rush which had really cheap drinks, was quite busy (for a Tuesday night anyway) and was just across the road from the hostel...and so we made that our home for the next two nights. The first night we had a shot which was labelled 'Smurf Piss' due to it's bright blue colour. Not sure what was in it, but it wasn't all that nice...I think it was just Vodka, Vodka and Vodka, with a drop of Blue Carucao??
Our forecast for weather was heavy rain Wednesday, and showers again on Thursday...so we were expecting to be rained on for the duration of our stay. As it turned out though, it
was coming down really heavy on Wednesday morning when we woke up, but by the time we got up and out on our way to the Castle, it had stopped raining altogether. Perfect!
So we went to Edinburgh Castle which was only about 500 metres from our hostel and a lovely walk down what they call the Royal Mile. It is such a pretty city, and it's quieter than I expected too. Very quiet in fact. So we spent a good 4hrs or so looking around Edinburgh Castle. It's magnificent, and so high up above the city that you get gorgeous views of the whole of Edinburgh from around it's walls.
By the time we left the castle the sun was out and it was quite warm. We even had to make a detour to the hostel for some t-shirts and shorts and ditch our jackets! We had a walk around Edinburgh which is quite an easy city to walk around. We walked down the Royal Mile to Hollyrood Palace for a look but didn't go in, then into the New Town, down Princes Street and through Princes Street Gardens and back behind the Castle. I know I
already said it and I'm going to have to buy a dictionary and learn some new adjectives...but the city is just beautiful. And the mix of the old town buildings mixed with the new town ones on Princes Street looks so dramatic, and then with the Castle in the background...it's like nothing else. I would say it's the prettiest city we've seen on our travels - even more so than San Francisco.
We then stopped in at a pub for the boys to watch England vs Holland in the U21 Football Championship semi final, in which we saw the longest penalty shoot out EVER...13-12 or something ridiculous. Noone cared who won in the end, we just wanted it to finish so we could all go to the loo. Towards the end of the game it started pelting down with rain again...like the heaviest rain I've ever seen. The streets looked like mini rivers for about 20minutes. Then it was lovely again outside. So we were pretty lucky with the weather as we were inside both times we had heavy rain.
Day two we made our way back down the south of Scotland to Rosslyn Chapel which was stunning
to look at, as well as hear about, with lots of interesting stories and myths behind it. There is scaffolding all around it which I thought was just our luck, but it turns out it has been up for 10 years (!!) to absorb all the moisture which was forming algae in the chapel and ruining the building. A bit dissapointing that we couldn't see the outside properly, but they have stairs with a walkway around it which meant you could see the carvings on the outside of the roof close up which was a bonus I guess. Had to buy a postcard though to see what it looks like in all it's glory.
We then went south again and had lunch by a lovely Scottish Loch and stopped at a tiny town called New Lanark which is World Heritage Listed - an old cotton mill town by the Clyde River. Very picturesque...and tiny, only 150 people live in the town in the old mill workers' buildings. Then we made our way home via a border town in England called Longtown so that we could get our traditional border sign photos (see pics).
So we will now spend
our last few days in England relaxing and spending time with Jimmy's family, as well as a couple of nights in Manchester before we fly out for Venice. **SO EXCITED!!**
We have put together a (very rough) itinerary of where we will be going and what dates/how many days we would like to spend in each city. At the moment, this is what our itinerary looks like...
28-30 June: Venice (2 full days)
1-5 July: Rome (4 full days)
6-8 July: Italian Adventure (3 days - Pompeii, Sorrento, Capri, Amalfi, Ravello)
9 July: Rome (1 full day)
10-12 July: Florence (2 days)
13-15 July: Nice (2 days)
16-18 July: Lauterbrunnen (2 days)
19-20 July: Lucerne (1 1/2 days)
21-23 July: Munich (2 days)
24-28 July: Paris (4 days)
29 July-1 August: Bruges (3 1/2 days)
2-6 August: Amsterdam (4 days)
7-9 August: Berlin (2 days)
10-14 August: Prague (4 days)
15-16 August: Cesky Krumlov (1 1/2 days)
17-19 August: Vienna (2 days)
20-? August: Salzburg (Fly back to London from Salzburg??)
**HELP**
For anyone who has been to any of these places, we'd love to hear if you think we need more/less days in a particular city,
as the way we are doing this trip is very flexible and we can change bus dates whenever we like...so let us know your thoughts. 😊
Yeehee...can't wait!!! 😊 Love to you all xx
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