Edinburgh, Scotland

Thursday morning we headed for Scotland. We left a little later then we wanted...10 am....I HAD to do laundry before I left. I really could have left it but I really wanted to get it done. So after I came back from the laundromat...we took off. We stopped in Sheffield which is a pretty big city. I would call it a "European San Francisco" with windy steep roads and no direct route to get anywhere. We enjoyed walking down the city center briefly then hopped back in and made our next stop, Alnwick Castle. While driving the girl spilt their hot chocolate in the car and it landed on my ONLY coat I brought...yeah I was not too happy but I just figured...oh well...I'll just freeze.

We knew the castle was closed for the winter but we HAD to stop by the Harry Potter castle and at least take a picture of it. Actually, Dan and Madison took a picture since I was freezing...and Hannah didn't want to get out. It took us about 8 hours to get up there with all of our stops which we didn't think was too bad. Dan and I loved how beautiful it is up north. It's super green, even more so then down here, and the hills are higher and there are more of them. It was breath taking with the sun out and seeing the rolling hills. We got into Edinburgh around the time every one was getting off work so it took awhile to get to the city center, but the city is BEAUTIFUL! Our hotel was in the actual city center so we parked in the front to check in really quick and find out where exactly we park and came out to find a 60 quin ticket on our windshield. Luckily it's only 30 since we'll pay it within two weeks but that was a bummer. We parked legally, well we lucked out, the man let us park in the employee parking lot which was free for us, and we walked the city center, ate some delicious Italian food...I know...Italian food in Scotland???....they must really like Italian food there since there is a restaurant on every corner. It was a nice place and we were a little hesitant about taking the girls in but they are amazing and so well mannered. They had such good service...England lacks in that department....and we socialized with the owner and waiters curious about the Americans who live in England and us about what to do here in Edinburgh on such a short time. Got some ideas, full satisfied tummys and headed back to our hotel.

The next morning we were up early and ready to hit the castle. I put on my 3 sweaters and Dan's liner for his coat and we were off. It was just about a mile away from our hotel so we got there and started walking up the huge hill to get to the castle. Perhaps we could have parked in a closer car park but we decided the hill would be good...since it was cold...perhaps it would warm us up. We took a tour of the castle and the man that did it wore a kilt....how I don't know since it was FREEZING. Madison was impressed with the way he spoke and how he said "wee" a lot. She tried it for a few hours....she gave up finally.

This was actually taken after we had spent 4 hours at the castle...I was freezing....hence the unhappy face.

The city looking out toward New Edinburgh.

The 7th gate to the castle. We had already walked through the other 6.

Madison...we were just about to the top of the castle.

Castle Square in front of the war memorial. They have records of all the deceased Scottish soldiers up to today. Pretty impressive.

Going through the royal chambers. We had just seen the rediscovered royal jewels as wells as the stone they use for the king and queen coronations.

Hannah not too happy about being in the dungeon.

The side of the castle...we had a long walk down. The city just outside the castle parking lot.

We enjoyed our day at the castle and then decided to head down to York. We took some coastal routes along the way, stopped at a pub in Berwick that had super tasty food and a bunch of characters in it who you could barley understand with their thick accents. We stopped in New Castle and man, that place is BIG! Dan needed a Starbucks and it took us an extra hour and a half....traffic was terrible! We had a good trip down and finally made it to our hotel in York around 7 pm. It was a good, long, eventful day.