My hubby and I didn't really have a traditional wedding and - with all the lead up to the move to Spain - we didn't take a honeymoon either. (After all, we were moving to Madrid, we figured the whole stint here would be one long honeymoon.) But this year on our first anniversary, we decided to take the honeymoon we never had and visit Scotland for a long weekend. It was a GREAT idea!
We decided to stay in Edinburgh area since we were just there for a long weekend. (We're going to try to get to Glasgow, Isle of Skye and Inverness on another trip). Our first day in Scotland we stayed in Edinburgh itself. We arrived in the late afternoon, so there was just enough time to take a walk down the Royal Mile before getting ready for dinner at the Secret Garden - a decadent restaurant inside The Witchery which is an equally decadent hotel in Edinburgh. The Royal Mile is the stretch of High Street that starts at Edinburgh Castle and ends at Holyroodhouse Palace. For an anglophile like me - it was heaven!
I snapped a few pictures on High Street while we were out for our walk of cute pubs and such:
The pub "World's End" is great! We ate there our last day in Edinburgh and the food was delicious. The two photos of what looks like little alleys are basically alleys but they are called "closes" - a "close" is a "closed alley" - they're very narrow and date from the medievel era in Edinburgh. They were the primary way people accessed their homes then and they allowed the maximum density of buildings while also providing quick access through shortcuts between places (you didn't have to follow the main streets). The buildings were built several stories up (10 or more in some buildings) and the method of waste disposal was to throw your garbage (and sewage) out the window and into the street. You can imagine that the filth and garbage that collected in these narrow passes was pretty horendous. Edinburgh apparently had a lot of problems during that time with plague and disease due to their sewage "system". Look at that! I have a guidebook for Scotland too! Of course now Edinburgh is easily one of the cleanest cities I've ever visited.
Our second day in Edinburgh we headed up to Edinburgh Castle. The oldest part of the castle dates from the 12th century. This is my favorite of the different castles we've seen so far in Europe. It's rough, majestic and beautiful and, standing in the middle of all that green that you find in Scotland, it's also romantic. This is a shot of the castle from the Prince's Garden on the other side of the river Forth:
The rest of these photos were taken at the castle itself:
There was a wedding taking place at the little chapel in the castle while we were there. The exit of the couple from the church was accompanied by a bagpiper. We actually saw three or four wedding while we were in Scotland and they all had a bagpipe as part of the ceremony. It was awesome to be in the castle, hearing the bagpipe music:
This is a photo of the one o'clock gun. It's shot at one o'clock every day (can you guess where the name comes from?) and you can hear it from wherever you're at in Edinburgh. I guess it's pretty handy if you don't wear a watch:
Here are a couple of photos of Edinburgh that we took from the top of the castle:
That's the Nelson Monument in the background of the second photo. After touring the Castle we went for lunch at a local pub. I had the greatest fish and chips of my life and my hubby had Yorkshire pudding with a locally made pork/fennel sausage that was delicious. He also convinced me to split an appetizer of haggis balls and - as it turned out - I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed Haggis.
After lunch we took a walk down to the other end of the Royal Mile so I could finally get inside Holyroodhouse Palace. This was the site I was looking forward to visiting the most. It's the Queen's residence when she's in Scotland and was the location of a ton of dramatic events in Scottish history - most importantly - the events surrounding Mary, Queen of Scots. Alas, this is the closest I got to Holyroodhouse Palace:
Boo! Hiss! As it turns out, the Queen was in residence the day before we arrived in Edinburgh and Prince Andrew was still there for some event. For some reason they don't let the unwashed masses tour the palace when the Royals are in residence. It was kind of a let down - but it gives me a good excuse to plan a trip back to Edinburgh.
After a little window shopping we took a cab out to the countryside of Midlothian - about 10 or so miles from Edinburgh to our next destination - Dalhousie Castle - where we planned to stay for a couple of days. I'll post some photos of our stay at Dalhousie a little later!
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