A Day in Edinburgh, leaving for Loch Ness

We decided that we needed to do some laundry, so we spent a little time that morning washing our clothes! :)

As we walked back to our room we passed this cute little church.

This was the outside of where we stayed that night! 

As we were packing our car, it all of the sudden started to pour! So we hopped in the car for cover! :)

To get into the city we took the bus and found that everything is plaid! :)

We started seeing more bagpipers as we got into the city! :)

This is a view looking up at the Royal Mile.

This is the view as we walk up to the Royal Mile to get to the castle!

We made it to the Edinburgh Castle and the first thing that we saw was the canon that goes off everyday at 1pm. The gun would fire each day to help keep time for the ships in the port and out in the bay. You might be thinking, "why don't they fire off a shot at noon each day? Why is it at 1pm instead of 12 noon?". Well, the answer is simple: the Scots are a very practical people, and they say "why waste 12 shots when 1 shot will do just fine".

The gun has been firing for a very long time, every single day. There is a map in the museum that was used in the olden days to calibrate your watch; basically it is a map with rings and if you are a certain distance away, then you are a respective number of seconds off of 1pm. This would account for the time it takes the sound of the canon to travel through the bay.

This was another canon that we found inside a museum! :)

This was kind of cool because its the propeller (air screw, as they call it) of a plane whose guns were not synchronized with the propeller!

Here is a close up shot! :) 

As we walked around we found this statue in the courtyard! :)

This is the original flag from the battle of Waterloo! It is the flag the was flown by Napoleon and his troops.

This is a cute little chapel. It's called Mary's chapel I think? One of the queens, Mary, would always come to this chapel to pray and eventually she ended up dying here of a broken heart when she was told that her husband died at battle.

It was a really cute little chapel that is still used today for weddings and so on. Although the chapel is very small, only big enough for maybe 20 people! :)

This was a huge canon, Mons Meg, that was actually used for many different battles; it eventually was retired because one of the shots burst the seams. It was sitting outside the chapel.

They had canons all around the castle. This canon sat where the old tower used to sit. During one of the battles the tower was destroyed and the enemy raided the castle. After this all happened they rebuilt on top of where the tower sat and fortified it with canons. 

The tour/audio guide ended up bringing us down to where the old tower of the castle sat. The tower was where the military units would sleep and a big banquet/eating hall was here.

After we went into a museum that told us about the kings and queens and about the crown jewels and so on...

After seeing the crown jewels (we couldn't take pictures of them) we found our way into the grand military hall. The roof was original to the building! :) 

Next we found our way into the dungeon, American, French and Germans have all been prisoner in this dungeon during the wars. 

This was the prison for the Scottish troops who were out of line.

This is Nathan in one of the rooms. It was for solitary confinement.

Some mannequin's showing us how it would have been. This was a guard getting a prisoner ready for his stay.

This is the castle from inside the grounds and our last view as we left the castle.

We found a church. 

Later we found some books about the clans in Scotland and we found my family!? :) Afterwards, we looked for other familiar family names and we found ... 

Nathans cousins!! :) Their motto fits them well! ;) haha

Having fun looking around the store and we found this! :)

Walking around some more!

They are all about their alcohol out here! :) haha

We found out that this monument is the Scottish monument.

A photo from the bus as we headed back to get our car.

On the road headed toward Loch Ness!

It was a beautiful evening!

The sun was still setting at 10:05pm and it was just a little darker at 11:05pm.

After this, we pulled off and got some rest for the next day! :)

Leaving Rome for Edinburgh, Scotland

Our last walk to the Rome train station.

The last Italian train ride.

All of our stuff.

Waiting to leave the station

Or view of the airport from the train.

When we got off the train we realized that today is Fiesta della Republica (June 2nd), the Italian National Day, or Republic Day (like the 4th of July in the US), so not many buses are running. The bus we needed to get to the airport wasn't coming for another hour after we had arrived and our flight would have left about 45 mins after that, we didn't want to cut it that close. So we looked up how long it would take to walk and to our surprise it would have taken 2 and a half hours! That's when we decided we needed to take a taxi.

Haha I decided to document the ride and this is the face I got from Nathan. At first it looked like he was going to take us to the wrong airport but then he turned and we made it to the right place! :)

We had to wait in line to get everything checked in. :)

Waiting into line.

We made it through with no problems! While we were waiting we decided to check out some of the stores and we found these mentos for a super cheap price! :) 

This is the bus that took us from the gate to the plane.

We got our passports stamped! :)

Our plane (737-800, for those interested).

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This was our entrance.

On the plane. None of the seats recline, but this flight was the first flight that we slept the most (just a fun fact).

Coming into Scotland

The green hill in the center of the picture is Arthur's Seat.

Already, it's beautiful!

Waiting in line for customs.

We made it to Edinburgh!

Our first rented car.

It's a really nice car!

First time getting in the drivers side on the right.

This was very different. I kept feeling like I should be driving.

Nathan did so well! He's a natural!

The streets we were driving on were unbelievable! So beautiful!

We made it to our hotel/B&B! It's a cute little Scottish place.

This is our doorway, behind Nathan is the door to the little bathroom.

Our cute little bed.

We stopped at a grocery store and Nathan thought this sprite bottle was really funny looking; it is a 2L bottle, but it is tall and skinny unlike US 2L bottles.

We bought dinner at the grocery store and walked to Holyrood Park to eat it!

It was so nice!

It was so cute, while we were eating there was a dad and his two sons in the park playing catch with lacrosse sticks.

You can't see it in this picture, but behind those trees in the back is Holyrood Palace, the official home of the Queen when she visits Scotland.

Nathan being handsome! :)

After we ate our dinner we decided to take a little walk/hike up to Arthur's Seat.

It was a pretty steep hike! :)

It was a beautiful view everywhere you looked! Even looking at the city!

Arthur's Seat

It was really windy up there! It felt so good though! :)

After we got down from the hill we walked through a little park toward the Royal Mile.

Welcome to the Royal Mile!

There are so many amazing buildings!

One of the buildings had funny mirrors! Haha this one made us short and stubby! :) Nathan thought it was a lot of fun! He kept shaking his hips! haha

This one made us tall and skinny!

We found our first bagpiper! :) 

Nathan found this awesome hat for me! It's way cute! :) 

We found a book about my family! :) ... Just take out the extra 'a' ... McArthur.

We walked around for a while and found castles everywhere! It really is beautiful here!! :)

After this photo, both our phones died, so we walked around a little more and found our way back home!