Edinburgh

Last week Ben and I took a weekend trip to Edinburgh. I did a lot of research into things to do and see but there was one small factor I didn't take into account. We had no idea that the England v Scotland 6 nations rugby match was also the same weekend. Apparently this rugby tournament is (and I quote a colleague) 'The super bowl of rugby'. So things got a bit crowded, and the weather wasn't cooperating for part of the trip, but we still managed to have a memorable time. 

One of the reasons we picked Scotland for our trip is because their zoo has panda bears. I love panda bears, and as all of them are owned by China, they are few and far between in Europe and America. Disclaimer, these panda bears were a bit of a disappointment. To quote Ben, 'Pandas were ugly and lazy'. Yeah so the panda's weren't great, BUT the zoo was still really fun and we saw some of my other favourite animals, penguins and koala bears! 

 Fun fact: One of the penguins (Sir Nils Olav) was knighted by King Harold V of Norway in 2008. We couldn't figure out which one is was so lets just assume he is the penguin pictured above, he seems quite knightly. 

The bird exhibit was also really neat. Ben and I really like this bleeding heart dove. The colouring is such that it looks like their heart is bleeding. 

 This was our favourite bird. It was so bright and colourful. 

 After the zoo we hit up the royal mile. We learned that Adam Smith was in fact Scottish. Ben and I both assumed he was American, but nope we were wrong. After some wiki searching we also learned that most of the economists of the time weren't American. Behind the statue of Adam is St. Giles Cathedral. It was really beautiful on the inside and definitely worth a walk through. 

 At one end of the royal mile is Edinburgh Castle, and at the other end The Palace of Holyrood House. Here I am in front of the Castle. It was closed by the time that we got there so we just admired it from the outside and took in the nice views of Edinburgh from the top of the hill the castle is on. 

The castle is built into the hill and overlooks all of the city. Edinburgh is a city of hills and valleys, so there are really cool vantage points all around. The castle was the last stop of the day. We then headed back to our hotel for a cozy evening that did not involve watching rugby. 

 The next day the weather was pretty miserable. It was cold, raining, and really windy. The worst party was the wind. We were going to go hiking that day but decided that it would be to miserable and instead decided to just see more of the city and hit up the queens official Scottish residence.

 Ben looks like a cute fluffy marshmallow! 

 The Palace of Holyrood House was really cool and I am actually glad that the weather was bad so that we toured it. It is not huge, and the state rooms are nothing compared to Windsor or Buckingham but there was so much great history here. The tower on the left in the picture above house the apartments that used to belong to Mary Queen of Scots. They still have a lot of her furnishings and items in them.

The palace is situated next to Author's Seat which is the hill looking thing in the background. 

 The most impressive part however was the abby attached to the Palace. The ruins were so beautiful.

 On our way back to the train station we stopped by the Scot Monument. On normal days you can walk to the top of it, but it was closed to to high winds. 

I asked Ben to summarize our trip and this is what he came up with, 'Edinburgh was very cold and windy. Scott Monument was closed and no one would feed us because of Rugby. Pandas were ugly and lazy. Not recomended :( ;(. ' Ha! Those were all feelings we had during the trip, but I think overall we actually really enjoyed it. I think the moral of the story is we will need to go back to Scotland in the summer, when there is not a huge rugby match and the weather will be better.