Edinburgh, Scotland

First Day

The flight over was delayed over an hour. That kind of sucked. Luckily we are in the air for all of 35 minutes or so. There was a hen party heading from Belfast to Edinburgh for the week to celebrate. They were a bit rowdy but funny.

Got into Edinburgh and Rachael and Paul picked me up from the airport and took me back to their place. I dropped my stuff off and then we headed right back out to the city. It turns out that Edinburgh is actually made up of a bunch of small towns that have grown together. On our way into town we drove through something like eight or nine of them. We parked close to Edinburgh Castle and went up to the entrance. Turns out the castle is a very popular tourist destination. I looked through the entrance and was like, "I have seen enough." We decided that we would go to Stirling Castle on Monday. That way I could see a castle without as many people.

So we spent the afternoon tooling around the city. We walked down the Royal Mile. Rachael told me that this was the type of place that she only went when she had visitors. It was easy to see why. It was a mile long tourist trap. It was entertaining though seeing the shops and the outrageously expensive property. There was a kilt shop that had sold a black leather kilt to Vin Diesel and were so proud that they had a picture of him wearing it out on a stand in the street.

We stopped by St. Guile's cathedral on the way down. You aren't allowed to take pictures inside without a special permit so all I have are ones of the outside. (Sorry not posted yet.) Rachael and Paul pointed out all of the famous closes as we went by them, Fishmonger's Close and others.

We finished with the Royal Mile and went down to the city center. We made a stop by the Scott's Monument and walked up the 280 odd stairs to the top. The entire stair case was a narrow spiral that as you got closer to the top it kept getting narrower. Towards the end there was only room for one person to go up or down and that was only if they turned their shoulders sideways. There were a number of stops on the way up with exhibits, look outs and the like, but the top made everything that much more amazing. (Again, I haven't got the pictures posted yet.) You can see out over all of Edinburgh from the top of the monument. It is absolutely breath taking.

We toured along some more eating lunch in the park by the ampitheater. Made our way over to the church that is next to the fountain. There is a cool floral clock in the park. The face and the hands of it are planted with live flowers. Makes for a pretty cool clock.

When we were done around town we packed into the car and went to a nearby hill that has a surveyor stone on it. It's a popular sight for people to walk and stroll about. From the top you can see miles upon miles away. The surveyor stone has picture of the horizon and names all of the peaks that are visible and how far away they are.

We finished up walking around and seeing the sights and headed back home. Rachael's sister, Katie, came over and Paul made chicken and veg for dinner. I made some beer bread for dessert. It was really good. Then it was time for a night on the town. We hit up a couple of the bars that Paul and Rachael go to whenever they are out. While we were out and walking around the street, completely sober mind you, we ran into the hen party that was on the plane with me. I pointed them out and laughed cause no matter how much I had had to drink it could easily be seen that they had had more. I was feelin' pretty good by the time we caught a cab and made it home for the night.

Second Day

Sunday was absoulely awesome. We got up and had breakfast (read ate some beer bread). We headed on out to the canyoning place, but realized that we were an hour and a half or so early. This gave us time to go around and see some of the other sights in the area. We drove over to Killin and stopped there for a break. I took some pictures of the rapids. Got a few to come out pretty well. We made our way back to the base camp for the cayoning expiditon. Our guide was already there and getting the wet suits ready. We got them on and hiked up the start of the canyon. Turns out canyoning is very close to what you might think. It involves get in cold water and going down the canyon. This canyon wasn't that deep so it was a lot of going over rapid and rocks and a few waterfalls. ;o) We also got to jump off a few of the small waterfalls into the plunge pools they had created. At the base of most of these falls there is pool that is a few meters deep and you can jump into without hitting the bottom too hard. After the plunge pools we arrived at a much bigger waterfall. The company had sunk some grounding straps into the rock so that we were able to repel down the waterfall. This was most excellent. Our guide stopped us half way down so that we had a chance to swing back and forth across the face of the waterfall and through all of the water coming over the edge. That was a blast. Since there was only three of us he let us do it twice. The next section was a little water fall that had hollowed out a basin. It was less of a waterfall and more of a slide that the water ran down. Being such, we went to the top of it and slid down it into the basin. Good fun. After we got down with the being wet and all, we treked back up the mountain so that I could take some pictures. They can be seen here.

With all the days events behind us, we stopped a pub and got something to eat. Steak and Guiness pie for me. Mmmmmm.... We made it back and walked down to a local pub where they were having quiz night. We got there a little too late and soon realized that we would not have stodd a chance even if we were playing. With that, we called it a night.

Third Day

Monday was a relaxing type day. We drove out to Stirling Castle and the Wallace Monument. We climbed to the top of Wallace Monument (about the same height as Scott's Monument but with more room to walk) and stopped at all of the exhibits on the way down. The we went over to the castle (there are essentially right next to each other). I toured around by myself while Rachael and Paul relaxed in the car, they had already seen it a number of times. There were some nice gardens and some interesting rooms. The outside was more interesting to me than the inside. In the back of the castle there is room where a number of weavers have been replicating some of the tapestries that have hung in the building. They are working on a series of seven and are part way through the sixth. The castle had had its main hall redone. It looked very out of place. Maybe it was becasue it was new. Anyways, we left the Stirling and drove back to Edinburgh. I still had a few hours before my flight so we went to some of the hills on the out skirts of town and I took some more pictures of the city and the country side.

So that concludes my trip to Edinburgh, Scotland. I must say that the country side is beautiful and that the sights are worth it, but the high light of this trip was by far the canyoning.