We woke up today bright and early thanks to a little critter named Tate. No blackout hotel shades can fool this kids body clock! No way, Jose! So we went to breakfast and while we ate we disturbed every business man and older vacationing couple around, we then got ready and headed out to explore Edinburgh!
Our first stop, the famous Edinburgh Castle. It is perched high atop a large mountainous rock called a cregg, and honestly to me it looked like what I always envisioned Camelot to look like.
"I hear, it never rains till after sun down..."
We walked up the hill to the castle and on to the Royal Mile which is a street going from Edinburgh Castle to the Holyrood Palace.
Here are the boys with us standing looking down the Royal Mile with the castle in back of me...
(those are such fake smiles I can't handle it...ha!)
Ahhh...some real smiles! All it takes is bribes and ice cream.
Here is Edinburgh Castle...
It was super cool! So large and gothic. I loved this lamppost outfront with the crown on top.
Here are the boys finishing their first bribe of the day...
Edinburgh Castle has a very cool history, but I have always been intrigued with the history of Mary Queen of Scots. She gave birth to her only son here, who became King.
We got our tickets from the ticket counter and honestly I had to stop myself from getting so distracted by their Scottish accents. SO cool to listen to!
You get a great view of Edinburgh from the castle...
We walked around the grounds of the castle and enjoyed listening to the audio tour and learning more about the history.
There is a prison here that housed prisoners from the revolutionary war. On the walls are carved american flags. It was so neat to see, and moving. Also a great teaching moment for the boys. I wanted to yell, "heck ya, we are awesome! Go USA", but decided against it for the social ramifications.
They were putting up these stands for the music festival that takes place later this month.
The dark stones that cover everything are really cool, but man it must be depressing when it is so grey and cloudy and everything is so dark!
It was funny, Thatcher had a loose tooth and actually lost his first molar while we were touring the castle. I took a picture to commemorate it. He'll always remember losing a tooth in Scotland!
I asked this boy to take a photo of us in front of the castle and when I got my phone back I had these pictures on it. Nice. Good one random kid.
Here is the family picture in front of part of the castle. I didn't notice until we looked at this pic that we are all wearing green and grey! Ayyy! "Matchy matchy green squared!"...should've saved this for Ireland!
We saw the Crown Jewels, which do not allow you to photograph, and then we had lunch at a little cafe in the castle. We went to the gift shop to get our souvenirs and then we left the castle and walked down the Royal Mile and saw this wonderfully gothic old church.
More of the Royal Mile...
After a little while of walking we all realized we were getting super tired, so we jumped on one of the hop on and off again sightseeing buses...
Just a bunch of goofy tourists...
Snapping pictures from a moving double decker bus is a skill I do not possess. But we had a great time on the tour...
A memorial...
One of the oldest department stores in Scotland...
And of course a Scottish pub...
After our bus tour we were hungry and tired, so we headed to dinner at Wagamama's and filled up on yummy asian cuisine. Then we headed back to our hotel and chillaxed all evening. The World Cup started tonight and the boys watched part of the first game. I also watched this amazingly horribly filmed, low budget British TV show called Dinner Date. It was so bad it was good, like a train wreck ya know?
Now we are off to bed tired from our Edinburgh adventures!
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