Advertisement
Published: September 29th 2016
Saturday morning we were supposed to wake up in time for breakfast that ran from 8:00am to 8:45am. That did not happen. We just couldn't get up. We all slept right up until 10:00am, and I honestly think it was needed. I woke up feeling so much better.
By 11:00am we were on a bus into the city. We realized that there was one main road, what we later learned was called the Royal Mile, and everything sort of revolved around that. It was nice to have one kind of main place to be. We found a little cafe that was outside that served breakfast. I wanted someone to get haggis (someone that wasn't me) but sadly nobody did. I got a nice English breakfast and a mocha (of course.) for our second day we decided to do the castle.
Edinburgh Castle is located at one end of the Royal Mile while the palace and the mountain are located at the other. We walked past so many little gift shops that we just had to go in and have a look around. I love giftshops and seeing what each one has to offer.
We got to the castle and were taken
Edinburgh Castle
The view from the topaback by this thing being built in front that looked almost like a football stadium. We still don't know what it was, but it was definitely weird.
The castle itself was dauntingly beautiful. You could tell it had been used for actual battle as a protective space. The Windows and the stones reflected the rich history it held. The view from the top of the city below was magificent. I took so many pictures of the same shot but nothing seemed to capture its beauty.
We explored the depths of the rooms where prisoners of war were kept as well as where prisoners of the Scottish Army were kept. We watched a demonstration of a man teaching people how to use giant spear-like weapons like people used to in battle. We even saw a couple taking their wedding photos, although that has nothing to do with the history of the castle.?
It was so cool just to walk around the grounds and explore each opening and tunnel. We spent like 3 hours there without even realizing the time had passed.
Our next stop of the day was to the hill we had seen the day before. We were going to
climb it. I love hiking so I was very much excited. We made our way up and up and up, stopping a few times to catch our breaths. When we couldn't go any higher on the particular ledge we chose; it wasn't the highest but it was highest we could've climbed if we wanted it to be daylight when we descended, we sat together and watched the sun set. Sitting there we heard so many different accents and languages of people walking by and we just sat and took in everything around us. It really was incredible to think we were sitting on a hill in Scotland watching the sun go down.
Just as the sun was disappearing we hurried down the mountain so we wouldn't get caught in the dark. Now it was time for dinner. Since I was craving pasta we decided on this cute Italian restaurant. It was actually very good except that they charged us for the bread they gave as an appetizer. Okay, we asked for it, but we thought it would be like at home where it was complimentary. Wrong. Anyway, it was a very good meal. Jess' birthday was Monday so we had
the waitress sing as she brought a dessert for us all to share. I don't know what the dessert was, something with cookie dough, but it was so tasty.
That was the end of our second day in Scotland.
I must mention that we made a habit of visiting this hotel when we needed to use the bathroom. I don't know when in our trip we did it, but it happened multiple times. In Europe you often have to pay like 20 cents to use a public restroom. Well that was not flying with us Americans. We found this hotel that we would always pass and one time we went in and used the bathroom. It became like a regular thing that we would use it and pretend we were staying there. One time we even pretended to talk about meeting our moms.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.254s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 5; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0574s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
