Unable to face the weekly grind after our long trip Down Under, Snookums and I headed off for a quick weekend trip to Edinburgh, Scotland to hopefully resign ourselves once again to life in the Northern Hemisphere. It worked, more or less.

Due to the nature of our cheap airline tickets, we didn’t leave London until 11:00 p.m. Friday night. By the time we got to our Bed & Breakfast, it was well after midnight. The little lady let us in and showed us to our room, where we crashed in a travel-induced stupor. The next morning we got up and explored our accomodation. This is the front lounge, with the fire burning and the antiques and the “honesty bar” in the corner. (There are much better pictures at their site.) Isn’t it cute?

After filling our bellies with a hearty Scottish breakfast, we headed out into town. First stop was the Royal Mile, which is probably Edinburgh’s oldest street. It runs from the castle at the top of the crag all the way down to Holyrood House (the Queen’s official Edinburgh residence). Here’s Snookums at St. Giles Cathedral, which is located about halfway up the Mile.

This is our first glimpse of Edinburgh Castle, as seen from the not-so-nice parking lot on the back side. The sky looked a bit gray that morning, but it cleared up nicely within a few hours.

Here’s Snookums looking towards the south (old) part of the city. Medieval Edinburgh had a wall around it and space was at such a premium that all the streets are tiny and the buildings are extremely high. You can take a “Ghost Tour” at night that purports to take you down into the vaults where the poor people used to live (and supposedly died by the thousands). I’ve done it before, and it was a little too scary to repeat.

When overcrowding finally became unbearable, a “Newtown” was built to the north of the castle. A contest was held to design the streets for this new area. A young Edinburgh man was chosen, and his design featured large, broad parallel streets with intersecting residential blocks between them. This is looking towards Princes Street, which has turned into the big shopping district of town. You can really see the distinction between the old city above and the new city here.

The castle has a free audio tour which basically tells you everything you could ever want to know about it. It’s been there forever, and it’s changed hands numerous times. (Edward Longshanks, the baddie from “Braveheart”, captured it, but then Robert the Bruce got it back, etc. etc.) Mary Queen of Scots gave birth to James I of England there. It also contains Scotland’s crown jewels and the Stone of Destiny. We’re just soakin’ up the history…

Here’s a much better view of Newtown. You can see that the streets are wide and the buildings aren’t so tall. In the distance is the Firth of Forth, Edinburgh’s gateway to the sea. There’s actually an amazing railway bridge over the Forth, but I didn’t get a good shot of it.

Looking to the east from the castle, you can see Arthur’s Seat, which is an extinct volcano that looms over the city. Climbing the hill is a favorite tourist pasttime, but Snookums and I weren’t feeling particularly athletic on this visit. We settled on admiring the hill from a distance.

This rather imposing line of cannons looks out towards Princes Street. At the very end, almost facing towards us at this point, are three more modern guns. One of them is fired every day except Sunday at 1:00 p.m. so that ships in the Firth can set their clocks.

Snookums admires some of Edinburgh’s newer architecture. Our cabbie from the airport Friday night took great pride in telling us that Edinburgh is now one of the world’s most popular locations to host conferences. Judging by the amount of cranes I saw, the city is indeed booming.

ARGH! Here I am with the perfect spot to capture the 1:00 gun going off. I snapped this one as a “before” shot and then put down the camera for two seconds to push my hair out of my face. Of course, the gun went off in that very instant and I nearly jumped out of my skin. *sigh* Just imagine a loud noise and a big puff of smoke coming out of the gun.

Up at the top of the castle is a curious little cemetery… for the pets of the officers. The castle is still manned by a garrison of soldiers, and this is obviously a special and well-kept little spot. There are several dogs buried here going back centuries.

Snookums peers out a cannon opening in the Half Moon Battery, which was “built to protect the Castle’s vulnerable eastern side after the Lang Siege.” The cobbled floor had grooves for water to run down after being poured on the cannons to cool them off. A well, the only source of water for the castle, was also located nearby.

I caught some rays while Snookums ventured down to check out the dungeons. The weather was bright and dry, but the wind was pretty strong and cold.

The Great Hall was where the monarch hosted dinners and social events within the castle. The light made it difficult to get a good photo, but I did manage to get this shot of a special stained glass window. The shields on the top are the family crests of Sir Robert the Bruce and William Wallace, respectively.

Having spent almost four hours out-of-doors exploring the castle, we were ready to move on. Here’s one last shot of Snookums heading down towards the main gate.

On to a more warming attraction… the Scotch Whisky Heritage Centre. We decided to take the tour, which kicks off with a free dram of Scotch for every visitor. Being a big wimp, I cut mine with Coke while Snookums had his straight up. On the tour you learn how Scotch is made and the importance of blending malt and grain whisky properly. For the grand finalé, you take a “Barrel Ride” through 300 years of Scotch history and wind up in a bar in the basement. Very cool.

After the whisky tour, we decided to head down Princes Street and view the castle from ground level. Here’s a nice silhouette.

Another shot of the castle as seen from Princes Street Gardens below it. The area where the gardens are now was originally the “Norloch”, or “North Lake”. They drained it when Newtown was built though, and I guess it was really pretty disgusting (they used it to drown a lot of “witches” in medieval times). Now it’s a pretty garden with a fountain and lots of benches.

We finished off Saturday night with a huge Italian dinner. Sunday morning we checked out of the hotel and headed back into town for one last push of sightseeing. Here’s our B&B as seen from the outside.

We started Sunday with an open-top bus tour around the city. Here’s Holyrood House, the Queen’s residence, as seen through the trees as we were driving past. (Hilarious aside: an obnoxious American woman kept asking the little tour guide lots of stupid questions. When we passed Holyrood, she asked, “Who lives there now?” And he said, “The Royal Family.” To which she replied, incredulous, “The English royal family?” I cracked up. Scotland and England have been joined together for a couple centuries now, you idiot.)

Some more skyline… I admit I don’t really know what I was goin’ for here.

Snookums is cold.

Our next stop as the Camera Obscura, which is a tall tower near the castle. At the very top is a mirror that directs a 360-degree image of the city down onto a table in a darkened room. It was pretty cool. They also have rooms with holograms and other visual magic tricks. The observation deck offers great views of town and the Firth courtesy of telescopes, which Snookums is using here.

Some very giggle Japanese tourist girls offered to take my picture, and here’s the end result. Yes, my eyes are fully shut. I still think it’s a pretty good picture, though.

Snookums mans a turret. (I have to give him major thanks for his patience in allowing me to use him as a model in most of my pictures. He’s photogenic, and I’m not. And, as he himself pointed out, he doesn’t have much choice. *grin*)

Here’s a view down the Royal Mile towards Holyrood House, which was our next destination.

And here it is! We did the tour, where you get to wander through some of the more interesting state rooms. We saw Mary Queen of Scots’s bed chamber, as well as lots of her personal items. I also liked the throne room and the royal dining room.

Unfortunately Holyrood Abbey’s ornate stone roof collapsed and the church is now a ruin. I still think it was incredibly beautiful.

With only a few hours to kill until our flight home, Snookums and I decided to stop in the Princes Street Gardens once more and simply enjoy the fresh air. Needless to say, within fifteen minutes he was out like a light. *grin*

That’s it! We flew back to London that night and arrived home tired and ready for a boring week at work. The travel bug has, I think, been exorcised. Well, for a while anyway.