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Erin and Justin, August 2003:

After hearing so much about the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, we both wanted to go see it. Since the town is overrun with tourists during the Tattoo, we decided to try our first coach tour to make things simpler. The tour industry has a few rules, the most noticeable being frequency of stops. We stopped at a rest area first for about 45 minutes, then at Durham for an hour. A quick stop at the Scotland and England border, then another 45 minutes at Jedburgh. We saw a cathedral in Durham and a tourist shop in Jedburgh.
Scotland is a very scenic country. Most of it is large rolling hills with glens and lochs. It also seems that each hill has a story to it - whether it is about Roman occupation, wars with the English, or good old domestic blood and violence. Having Gordon (our coach driver) tell us about different histories made the trip very interesting, plus we learned and saw things we wouldn't have seen had we driven on our own or flown. We arrived at our hotel in Kinross, a small village about 20 miles outside of Edinburgh, at 500pm, 12 hours after starting out.

Our second day was filled with activity. We started with a bus tour of Edinburgh, including a stop at Calton Hill. The bus tour was an easy way to see the city quickly. Halfway through our bus broke down, but we borrowed another tour bus, whose passengers were busy for the morning, to finish our tour. We finished at the castle gates, after which we toured Edinburgh Castle.

After seeing the castle we wandered around the city. It was extremely crowded; during the Tattoo, Edinburgh grows from 500,000 people to 1,500,000. We first stopped at John Knox house. It was well done - not too long but gave lots of information. After that we made a short walk to Adam Smith's grave, which is surprisingly hidden. The only reason we even knew of it was that it was mentioned on the bus tour. A local museum has a Monet exhibit, so we stopped by that. Neither of us thought it was that great; it was also the most expensive thing we did that day. Our last stop before the Tattoo was Greyfriar Bobby's grave. For every one person to see Adam Smith's grave, one hundred sees Greyfriar Bobby's. Ironically his owner's grave, which made him famous, is hidden in the back.

The Tattoo is as good as everyone says. What makes it great is its variety - everything from Switzerland to Oman to dirtbikes to dancers. We were expecting to get sick of bagpipes, but instead wished there were more. It was close to two hours but felt half that. If you're not sure what the Tattoo is, click here.

Our return trip the next day was similar to our first day: long with many stops. The most notable is Gretna Green. It has an entertaining museum about the differences in marriage laws between England and Scotland. Since it's in Scotland right on the border, many English couples whose parents did not approve sneaked across the border to get married. We also stopped at a private residence which has a large and well landscaped garden, with a flower clock. The grass was also very neat and soft - our feet sank right in.

Overall the coach tour worked out well. It did limit us as far as what we could see. Also, the actual trip takes a long time because of the frequent mandated stops. We didn't have too much time in any one place, but we did get a good taste of Scotland.

Erin and Kayla, August 2002:

We were able to sleep in a little since our train from Glasgow to Edinburgh didn't leave until 8:00am. Erin wanted to get to the station early. That turned out to be a good thing since the 8:00am train was cancelled, so we took the 7:30am train. We arrived in Edinburgh about an hour later. The town was blanketed in fog which turned out to be really pretty. Since nothing opened until 9:00am, we walked up to Calton Hill to get a look of the city. We couldn't see more than 30ft in front of us but we took some cool pictures and then headed off to Edinburgh Castle.

Edinburgh castle had a free tour of the grounds that we took. Parts of the castle date back to the 6th-century and some parts of the castle were built in the 20th-century. Over the years the castle functioned as many different roles including fortress, royal palace, military garrison and state prison. It was interesting to walk into the different buildings and have those aspects accented through the architechture and furnishings. Two hours later as we were leaving, we walked past a huge queue for admission to the castle. It was a good thing we went early otherwise we would have been wading through people as we toured.

Once again, we decided to take the city bus tour. And, once again we found that we saw quite a few locations we wouldn't have otherwise seen. After the tour, we decided to walk around for a bit. We walked back up Calton Hill to get pictures of the city. We also walked along High Street (Royal Mile) which had many street performers and some craft booths. Some of the street performers we very talented while others might have been better off with a real job. We enjoyed the experience of it all. Kayla decided that we had toured enough historical stuff so we ended up at the Waverly Shopping Centre. We bought some souvenirs among some other items. Kayla was impressed with the low prices and didn't want to pass up on some great deals. When the mall closed (6:00pm) we walked down to our hostel. It turned out to be pretty nice, or would have been, if we hadn't had the room next to the rec center. We had a private room with seperate beds which we enjoyed for the first time on our adventure (only one bed at Drummond Lodge).

To continue with the rest of our adventure, click on Bury St. Edmunds , Ely , Cambridge , Glasgow , Edinburgh , or Dublin.