Edinburgh, Part Two: Have Fun Storming the Castle!

Our first full day in Edinburgh dawned bright and sunny, perfect for trekking up The Mound to reach the castle. A word to the wise - if you're planning to go to Edinburgh, take good shoes and work on your endurance. The New Town is relatively flat, but up to and around the Old Town involves lots of hills! It reminded me a bit of San Francisco. 

View of the castle from Princes Street Garden.

The Esplanade. Pshew!! We made it. Now to navigate through all the crazy tourists.

  

Overlooking the New Town, which dates from the mid-1700s. Edinburgh is actually a small city, with fewer than 500,000 inhabitants. I know! I was surprised, too. 

Nary a breeze to flutter the Union Jack.

This way to The Honours of Scotland, the Scottish Crown Jewels. We saw the crown, sword, and scepter used by Mary, Queen of Scots, for her coronation.  Also there, the much-traveled Stone of Scone! 

We saw a demonstration of Scottish war techniques, namely, the use of pikes. Much yelling and grimacing. 

The Scottish War Memorial is lovely and quite moving, with panels dedicated to each of the Scottish regiments. 

Such a beautiful day!

Pure speculation, but I think this piper was there for activities surrounding the premier of the new Michael Fassbender movie, Macbeth, which was largely filmed on the Isle of Skye.  

Rather an intimidating sight for invaders, I should think. The Rock has been inhabited since the Iron Age.  Wow!

How aptly named.

Next up: Edinburgh, Part Three!

Edinburgh at Night

Oh, Edinburrah, you certainly didn't disappoint! After returning our rental car to the airport (2,000 miles later!), we hopped into a black cab and said, "To the Caledonian, James!" What an amazingly luxurious treat it was, staying there. The staff was so nice, even if the front desk couldn't tell us where the moon would be during the blood moon-lunar eclipse event. :) Regardless, they're still five-star in my eyes! 

After relaxing for a bit and doing the Electric Slide in our enormous bathroom, we ventured out for dinner. Tapas! In Scotland? Yes! Dinner at La Tasca will go down as one of my favorite meals - ever. The Montadito de Cerdo pulled pork with red chili sauce was divine and the sangria was perfect. No pictures, sorry! 

After our bellies were full and our spirits lifted, we walked along Rose Street and had fun watching all the stag and hen parties stumble over cobblestones and into various bars. Some pubs/restaurants had snappy chalkboards out front. This one was my favorite:

Edinburgh Castle

Home, for three nights, anyway. 

Next up: Edinburgh Castle!

The Kelpies - On the Road to Edinburgh

The Kelpies are an impressive sight to see when driving south out of the Highlands toward Edinburgh. They're new and part of a cool park complex in Falkirk. Made of galvanized steel, they're thirty meters high and three-hundred tons each - wow! They celebrate Scotland's horse-powered heritage (thanks, Wikipedia!).  

Next up - Edinburgh!

Doune Castle

I just couldn't pare down the selection of images from Doune Castle, so it gets its own blog post. Outlander fans will recognize it as Castle Leoch in the show. No actual JAMMF, (could have brought home a Pocket Jamie from the gift shop though) but we DID see men in kilts and a real live bag piper! We visited Doune on someone's wedding day and so were treated with the sight of formally dressed Scots, replete with fascinators and kilts. It was lovely to watch them parade up the steps to the Great Hall, and fun to imagine other weddings which surely have taken place there in bygone days.

Real bagpipes and a real authentic piper!

I was trying to not be obvious about taking pictures of the wedding guests/party, so this is the best one I have of the kilts. I think it's fun that he has a cell phone.

Yeah, good luck climbing these puppies in stiletto heels!

Adored the old glass! 

How in the world did women back in the day navigate these stairs without constantly injuring themselves??

Had the upper floors all to myself.

I climbed a typically small spiral staircase to reach the roof and was so glad that I did!  

The wedding guests were being bussed in and dropped off a short distance from the castle.

Loved the roof tiles.

The little town of Doune is lovely. We had a very nice late lunch here, at the Doune Deli. I highly recommend it.

Photographer selfie!

I think my Grampa would have enjoyed this picture - his name is Harvey!

We'll continue the journey to Edinburgh with the next post!