Edinburgh Walking Tour

Hello Scotland!  

We arrived yesterday afternoon but, due to lack of sleep and travel exhaustion, we found our hostel and ended up sleeping for 18 hours.  Oops - missed some excitement in the Grassmarket Square at 3:00am but woke to shouting/chanting (thinking maybe protesters were outside), looked outside to see about 8 guys in their 30's throwing themselves on a 3 foot in diameter inflated tube across the street.  So, it didn't look like anyone was going to get trampled or killed (aside from these guys doing it to themselves in their drunken stupor as they fell hard repeatedly onto the concrete ground), and we felt safe, so back to sleep.  

It's pretty quiet here in Edinburgh.  Not a lot going on, but there are quite a few tourists, mostly, it seems, from the U.K.  It is Sunday, so perhaps this was their weekend/day trip.  

Grass market Square - Quiet Sunday Morning!

Restaurants Along Grassmarket Square

After a fairly nice breakfast at Edinburgh's oldest pub, where Lee discovered the Flat White and I found a vegetarian breakfast (complete with vegetarian haggis, which was quite nutty and tasty), we headed over to the Edinburgh Castle.  

A side note:  What seems very typical of Europe, there are these lovely 'shortcuts' between streets.  Here most of these shortcuts involve 3-4 flights of stairs, so we figure we should be in pretty good shape by the end of the trip. Or at least we'll have great butts!

The Castle was pretty cool, very large and somewhat menacing as you walked up to it.  Unfortunately, they did not have the entire castle open to the public so we were only able to see certain areas.  We would have liked to see some of the upper floors, where the royal families really lived and enjoyed life, when they could.  The history of Scotland and its Castle is quite interesting as it changed rulers and almost become overtaken by other kings.  The wars across the centuries of course played a large roll in the development of Scotland's history so it was very interesting to walk through the war museums as well.  

Edinburgh Castle - Walking Up To The Entrance

Canons!

Lee Allowing 1 Picture of Her Today

Great Hall (inside) - Living Quarters?

One of the Apartments' Superb Fireplaces

Guard House Outside the Chapel

View of Edinburgh from the Castle

Bagpiper at the Castle

Military Prison - Where the Americans (aka Rebels) Were Housed

Love These Rowhouse Buildings Throughout the City

Red Telephone Booths!!!

Gothic Architecture (I think) - This is a church

Scott Monument

Grassmarket Street

Edinburgh is a pretty nice city, with some cool Gothic architecture placed throughout the rest of the stone buildings.  Prices are on par with what we'd expect in Calgary (at least), only they are in pounds, which means a reasonable 10 pound meal actually is costing us $20+ this time around but we're trying to have breakfast and dinner, and avoid lunch as much as possible to see if we can save a little bit of money.  However, this would work for me if portions were as extravagant and obnoxious as they are in North America; portion sizes are actually healthy here, so far, so I'm going to have trouble not eating between meals!  So far, I've found food I can - vegetarian is usually safe for me, and I found a lovely Bulmer's Blood Orange cider to enjoy as we sit in the hostel lounge.  

The hostel is fine, we have a private room with bunk beds but there isn't much inside aside from the beds.  We have dorm-style bathrooms and showers down the hall, but we found the room pretty soundproof, which is important.  It's for one more night, and then we are off to Inverness tomorrow morning!

Just looking up some restaurants to try tonight.  It seems like there are a lot of ethnic restaurants here - Indian, Mexican, Thai - but since we can get that anytime at home, we are trying to find a Turkish restaurant that's nearby.  It's another prominent ethnic food in Edinburgh, probably due to the history of Edinburgh's part in the Crimean War?  Who knows.

Oh, and Scotland still has a penny!