Scotland Tour: Edinburgh

Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland...and it's pronounced "Edinbura". It's funny because Brits that come to the US and visit Pittsburgh would say "Pittsbura"! After spending a couple days in the Highlands, we traveled to Edinburgh for a day in the city.  I found it to be a very comfortable and safe city.  We stayed in an apartment right on the "Royal Mile" which is a road a little over a mile long between the Edinburgh Castle and the Palace of Holyroodhouse.  We didn't actually go in the castle or the Palace, but caught some views from the outside and checked out the shops along the way.  I always enjoy perusing the royal gift shops with Queen Elizabeth merchandise.  Somehow though when my husband is with me I don't spend as much money!

 The view from outside the Castle, in the center of the arena where they are getting ready for the Edinburgh Military Tatoo, an annual August military performance.

 While on our way to the Palace, we reached the "world's end".  The alleyways between buildings are called "closes" and Sean stood in the World's End Close.  Just outside the close is where the original wall of the city was, and so for the residents of the city that was "the end of the world."

The view of Holyroodhouse Palace, a royal residence.  I would have loved to go inside, but the kids were a bit exhausted from a day of walking in the rain. 

This is St. Giles Cathedral, just outside of our apartment.  We took a little walk through at the beginning of our day and saw the Thistle Chapel, which is a small chapel in the corner which seemed to be entirely constructed of wood carvings.  It is in the Thistle Chapel, that Prince William was inducted as a Knight of the Order of the Thistle on July 5th.

Our apartment in Edinburgh was just lovely and in a perfect location.  We lived on the 3rd floor of this building above.  The rooms felt old with huge, thick doors, enormous windows and cathedral ceilings. After spending 2 of the previous nights packed into a single hotel room, the space felt really nice!

Scotland Tour: West Coast Railway

The next day in Scotland was a drizzly day...not uncommon, I'm told. We road the West Coast Railway on a train that goes over the Glenfinnan Viaduct, made famous by the 2nd Harry Potter Movie, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. This is the scenic route that the Hogwarts Express takes to get to Hogwarts.  Just after the bridge, the train stopped in Glenfinnan, where the children got to try riding a broom stick.  Avery actually had a bit of success and got airborn. 

It was a beautiful ride to Maillag, where we found some lunch and then hopped on the train again to ride back. Maillag felt like a small fishing village with a bunch of restaurants to feed all the tourists that come on the train.

 Some views from the train....

 

One of the cars on the train, was arranged with "Harry Potter Style" cabins.  We wished that we could have ridden the whole way in one of those, but at least we got to sit in one for a few minutes.

Scotland Tour: Fort William

Last weekend we took a short break to Scotland.  Our first stop was Fort William, which was about 7 hours north of us.  Some of the draw to this area is the scenic West Coast Railway, made famous in the 2nd Harry Potter Movie.  We also wanted to see the beautiful scenery that Scotland has to offer. 

So on our first full day in Scotland we did some more driving to see a few sites.  Our first castle was the Eilean Donan Castle, which may seem familiar because it has been in lots of movies since the mid 1900s, most recently "Made of Honor" in 2008.  The castle was very picturesque, out on it's own peninsula, with a bagpiper playing out front. 

This castle has its origin in the 13th century, but was destroyed in the early 1700s and wasn't rebuilt until the early 1900s.  It is a relatively small, romantic castle, and the first one that I've been in that feels like a real home.  We explored the castle and then enjoyed the scenery outside.

On our way to see Loch Ness, we stopped on the side of the road to see a local war monument and spotted some Highland cows.

For those of you who don't know, "Loch" means lake, so there are many Lochs in Scotland.  I found that this area of Scotland reminded me a lot of the Adirondack lakes surrounded by mountains.  It didn't take long for us to get to Loch Ness, a very large and deep lake.  We pulled over and went to the Loch Ness Centre, which does a nice job of sharing all the monster stories, the hoaxes, and all the investigations that have been done to explain the sitings.  It's pretty amazing the amount of science that has been done in the loch to understand what lives there and what doesn't.  Unfortunately, we had no sitings of Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster while we were there.