Day 49-51: Edinburgh: Part 2

A day late, but such is life when you try to plan posts around more trips! Again, I apologize for the picture overload!

After a very lovely sleep in a very large bed, which I am now missing quite a lot, we were up early for the breakfast at the hotel. I forgot to bring my camera or Mom's down, so there aren't any pictures, which is a shame. We had breakfast both mornings, but the second day we had a girl in training so she didn't serve us quite the same. It was so cute, a shared teapot and little pots of jam and toast on the tables. Adorable. Headed out by 10 that morning to explore a little more in the area and head towards the Tron Kirk where we started the walking tour. On our way, we passed a Christmas store. It's so much fun being around my Mom where there are Christmas things, because her face literally lit up like a Christmas tree. So cute. She looked around a little but vowed to drop back later in the day to pick up an ornament she liked.

Here's a few from the walking tour. It started to rain a bit, so the Nikon was gently stuffed inside my jacket, thus few pictures were taken. The tour was more to learn about the city than take pictures, so it was still really awesome. 

the tour guide, scottish with italian background. good combination!

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Just after our break, we headed down to the Grassmarket area where Mom and I were staying. It's quite central to the city, so we walked on to the Harry Potter aspects of the tour, including the site where J.K. Rowling supposedly wrote and the Greyfriar's Kirkyard where she got inspiration for characters!

princes street gardens

Following the tour, we went with the tour group to have lunch and finally try haggis. Mom had the Highlander chicken, which is a chicken breast stuffed with haggis. It was disgusting. I tried some just to say that I had, and I will never try it again. Too mushy and just gross. From what I've heard, it can taste really good so I'm chalking it up to the wrong form. I'm still not eating it again. From there, neither of us felt like shopping so we headed up to see the Edinburgh Castle. The view of the city was absolutely beautiful, and the rain had luckily cleared off. More pictures of the Castle grounds and some of the museums within it.

the one picture of us not taken from an extended arm. Loves :)

Supper followed the remainder of our touring of the city. We found a cute little Italian place for supper. I had pasta as I keep doing, and gelato for dessert. Still need to go to Italy to have the best kind, but it was tasty anyways. We went for a drink at a nearby bar after, and I was surprised to see how many people were out. Mostly men, but the bars were crowded early. It was amusing to stay there with my Mom in a bar, but was a nice way to spend the last night. We headed back to the hotel around 9 and spent the rest of the night relaxing in the room and packing up. 

Sunday morning was a little rushed but still good. We got up early to go to breakfast then headed to the Scottish National Museum for a couple of hours. Really interesting place, lots of cultural history about Scotland and how it connects to other countries. From there we dropped into the Elephant House for tea, just because, and back to the hotel to check out and head to the train station. A couple hours wait and we were back on the train for England again.
 

Edinburgh is full of stairs. brutal, brutal stairs.

view of the coast, so much like home!

So that was Scotland! I think I missed a bunch and I left out lots of pictures but that's an overview of the weekend! I've got a couple more posts of Mom's trip here to update, so those will have to wait for now. Off to finish some overdue homework and make my room not look like such a mess.

Til next time!