Blogs from Edinburgh, Midlothian, Scotland, United Kingdom, Europe - page 15

Today I toured Edinburgh Castle for the first time. The castle sits atop a hill over-looking the Firth of Forth as well as the city itself. You can look out from virtually anywhere in the castle walls and see a panoramic view of the city, so there's a lot of photo opportunities. Edinburgh Castle has quite a robust history. It was built in the 1100s, however, the land had been occupied and settled longer before that. Throughout its history it has served as the residence of monarchs, including Mary, Queen of Scots and as a base for military garrisons. Other than admiring the views from multiple points throughout the castle, you can tour the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards Regimental Museum, the Scottish War Memorial and the National War Museum. The Scottish National War Memorial is a ... read more

The choice to visit Scotland was kind of unique for us, as it was a destination that we chose because of some family history on Jessica's side. Because of this history, there were some key sites - mostly the highlands and Urquhart Castle, and so we tried to plan around these destinations (more on them in another post). Otherwise, it was 'How do we get there easily and cheap?'. Edinburgh was very convenient as we had enough MileagePlus miles, and United had just introduced a new non-stop from Chicago to Edinburgh that had a lot of award seats available. So, Edinburgh was our central base, and the rest of our planning and activities fell into place in time. Part 1: Edinburgh - Royal Mile and Edinburgh Castle Part 2: Edinburgh - Calton Hill and Greyfriars Area ... read more

Until now we had never managed to time a trip to Scotland with the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. We managed to put that right this year. It was so easy and just an hour's journey by train from Glasgow. We also managed to meet up with Claudia who we had met when we were working in Libya last year. We had travelled a lot over there with her, so it was great to catch up on each others lives since then. Edinburgh is such a nice city at any time of year, but during the festival the streets are buzzing. Don't be surprised to bump into a bagpiper, a Zulu warrior and a Star Wars stormtrooper within yards of each other. Have your camera at the ready because as you wander through the streets you are going ... read more

Geo: 55.9503, -3.18761All of Wednesday, Aug 13 and half of Thursday was time intransit. Lufthansa flew me from Seattle to Frankfurt and then to Edinburgh.This was rather unexciting but here are some observations.Lufthansa is too classy of an airline to nickel and dime itspassengers in the same manner that RyanAir, Spirit, and others screweveryone. However I was concerned abouthow zealous Lufthansa might be in enforcing luggage – check-in and carry-on –dimension and weight restrictions. As a consequence I spent hours playing with different mixes of items tomaximize the amount items that I could bring to Europe. Even then I had leaveitems behind: DSRL camera lens, point and shoot camera plus batteries andcharger, pair of fashionable shoes mainly for London, and a whitewater kayakhelmet with an attached action camera. I also had to pack some electronic andoptica ... read more

Last day in Edinburgh. One of Tricia’s mission was to run in Scotland and run in London. Today, we achieved 1 of the 2. We woke up early and went for run in the Gardens. Considering, I hadn’t worked out for the last few months, I told Tricia I wasn’t going to run with her, but I would walk. It was quite a site to see. Tricia would run and every few steps, she would stop to take a picture.. run a little, take a picture, run some more… take a picture. I did the same, but walking… You couldn’t help it… the gardens were quite and had very few people around. Perfect picture taking time. All in all, we ran about 40 minutes or so… run in Scotland, check! After our run, the Rices went ... read more