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!

That one day when I thought Lee just might kill me if we took one more single-track road

It's not the driving on the left which presents a challenge in Scotland. It's really the single-track roads with hairpin turns, blind summits, random herds of sheep, and Russian roulette-esq practice of dodging locals who have a laissez-faire relationship with keeping to their "side" of the road. Had a couple of close calls and a few exclamatory moments from Lee, but we survived with nary a scratch to the car.  

It's all worth it for views like these!

We found an adorable six-car turn-table ferry to take us "over the sea to Skye." This is the road sign on the approach to the ferry...

Two working dogs accompanied the ferry runners. Love them!

That one time we went to a remote corner of Scotland and met a couple from Indianapolis!

Kylerhea Ferry

I'm on top of the world!

The Monon Trail is wider than some of the roads I drove on. Yikes!

Castle Moil ruins in Kylerhea across from Kyle of Lochalsh.

Sheep!

So. We drove to Applecross and were not impressed. The best part was the drive, honestly. Not entirely worth it as a destination.

Have you ever felt fear emanate from someone? I have when we pondered this sign and decided to take the long way round.

This concludes our time in the Highlands. :( Next up - highlights of our cottage and the journey to Edinburgh!!