Edinburgh, Scotland

The entrance to Endinburgh Castle

Two years ago when we were in Singapore one of the workers for the kids program was from Switzerland. We have kept in touch with him and visited him last year. He and his wife were going to be in Scotland for two weeks with a choir. They had a free day so we decided to go visit them in Edinburgh.

We drove there which according to Google Maps is about 4.5 hours but according to actual road time is about 5.5. We did stop for coffee and to eat our packed lunch plus some of the roads are single lane not dual carriageway.

We arrived in the afternoon and stayed at a hotel near the zoo. The next day we took the bus into the city and went to Edinburgh Castle. We got there early. If you plan to go there, buy your tickets online. The line can be long. I thought it was long when we got there but it was much longer when we were leaving.

The view looking from the castle.

Here we are in the Great Hall. Miss K really wanted to take a photo. That is how we look from her view.

Trust me if she wants to take your photo you better do it or else she will find a weapon in the Great Hall (just kidding).

This is St. Margaret's Chapel which is not that big.

You can see the city and the sea from here.

These guards were friendly.

The castle has some children's pages that the kids can look for things and learn as you wander through. We didn't have much time so we opted not to focus on that while we were there.

This is what the castle looks like from the outside of the walls. It just looks like it is coming up from the rocks.

We met our friends and then wandered the old part of the city. We went to St. Giles Cathedral. It was lovely and there was someone playing the piano while we were there so we quietly wandered about looking at the stained glass windows.

We found the statue of John Knox, another one of our Veritas Press timeline cards.

I think after some of our travels this summer I would enjoy architecture appreciation. Don't tell the kids we might add some of that into our learning this year.

We wandered a bit heading to the museum and found this cute dog. This is Greyfriars Bobby. "The bronze statue of the terrier who faithfully guarded the grave of his master, the policemen John Gray, at Greyfriars Kirk for 14 years until his own death in 1872."

One last view of the castle. It was rainy and we joined a crowd of people waiting for the rain to stop. It was good to see our friends. We have met them in Singapore, Switzerland, and Scotland. Next year we will find another country that begins with S. (just kidding)

We drove down towards Lindisfarne and stopped along the way to look at the view of the North Sea.

We had a short stay in Scotland. I feel like we only scratched the surface things you can do there. Maybe we will need to find some time to go back.

Beth