Weekend in Edinburgh

June 12 & 13

Edinburgh was wonderful and magical! There was beautiful scenery from the window of the train. Throughout England there are rolling green hills full of sheep and lambs and as we got into Scotland we were able to see the coastline with its cliffs, crags, and monolithic rock formations. Train travel is wonderful for catching up on conversation, reading, and snacking (we are going to have to watch that habit as they feed you better on the trains than on the airlines and the snacks are really yummy....double chocolate dunking bars, fruit and oat soft bars just like homemade oatmeal cookies, and Walkers Shortbread cookies!!!)


From the train station we made our way down the main road to our hotel in the original Caledonian Train Station. Our room looked out at the Edinburgh Castle which dominates the skyline as it sits upon Castle Rock and is completely majestic! That is were our tour began and we spent the next few hours exploring this amazing fortress that had its beginnings in the 12th century. From the Castle, we made our way down The Royal Mile which is jam packed with kilt shops, art galleries, pubs and eateries, souvenir shops, and best of all the medieval cobble stoned walkways (wynds and closes) that lead to gardens, tiny shops, smaller museums, kirk yards (kirk = church) all on the way to the 12th century Palace of Holyroodhouse.


We saved our tour of The Palace for Sunday and were greeted by a drizzly day so as we made our way there we stopped at an art gallery that we had seen the day before and spent some time choosing black and white drawings to begin our collection of UK artwork. The Palace is quite impressive and full of history. As you exit The Palace you are in the ruins of the Abbey which was the original structure on this site. Once outside, it stopped raining and allowed us a walk through the gardens where we were able to view the ruins with the peak of Arthur's Seat in the background.

Lots more beautiful scenery from the windows of the train and the ticket-taker on our return trip looked liked he belonged in a children's storybook: short and squat with white hair and mustache and his train uniform was complete with a hat!!!

See our photos: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/alysehirsekorn/Edinburgh?authkey=Gv1sRgCJjootWu1oymPQ&feat=directlink