Day 8 - Castle and Holyrood

Under the cover of darkness, Melissa has taken control of the alarm clock.  As such, this morning we slept in until 845 am.  I fear I am at her mercy.

This morning started off with an important order of business.  Being that we are now halfway through our journey, we are north running short on clean laundry.  We found a laundromat a few blocks away down in grassmarket and took our clothes there this morning,  We had the choice of doing it ourselves, or paying a few extra pounds to have it done and folded for us.  It was a no brainer to have it done for us, as we would rather not spend half a day of vacation watching clothes churn.

After dropping off our laundry, we walked up to the royal mile.  Since our hotel did not provide breakfast, we were left to fend for ourselves.  Given the advanced hour and it's convenience, we grabbed breakfast sandwiches at Subway.  Next, we walked down to the train station to purchase our Edinburgh Royal Passes, which would give us admission to the castle, Holyrood Palace, the Royal Yacht Britannia, and 48 hrs of access to the fancy tourist buses circling town.

The tourist bus circled through the new Georgian town before turning back towards the old town.  We got off at Edinburgh Castle and went in.

The location of the castle is on a hill overlooking the town, and the location in itself is spectacular.  The tour guide made no secret that the majority of the castle is not original.  It has been destroyed for various reasons over the years, like when Robert the Bruce ordered it destroyed when he was taking every last man off to war against the English and didn't want to risk coming back and having to take over his own fortress.  There is a small chapel at the top of the castle that is original, as it was not destroyed out of fear of angering God.

The tour was very informative, and the castle was quite majestic.  I particularly liked how the building rises out of jagged rocks in the hill.  The geography reminded me of Arthur's Seat from the previous day.  Both the seat and the hill the castle is built on look like eroded volcanic plugs.

The castle's location high on the hill was beneficial for fending off invading fleets at sea, and it was equipped with long range cannons for just this purpose.  The San Franciscan in me laughed when the tour guide said that the castle was never taken by traditional means, meaning that nobody ever charged over the moat and through the door.  He did say though that a small group of Scots took the castle back from the William the Conqueror by scaling the back walls under the cover of darkness and lowering the drawbridge to let their buddies in.  This is like saying your house has never been robbed because the thieves did not use the front door.  This also reminded me of the Alcatraz tours where they say nobody has ever escaped, but multiple escaped inmates have never been found and are presumed drowned.  Anybody can have an unblemished record by these methods of accounting.

After completing the castle tour, we exited and headed back for the tour bus.  On the way, we stopped into a few tourist traps and managed to find the office of the tour company that offers the Loch Ness and Highlands tour that Melissa has been pining for.  We didn't book at this time, but will likely be back soon for this purpose.  Our hotel is maybe 3 blocks from the office, so we will have options.

We took the tour bus the full royal mile down to Holyrood Palace.  Holyrood completes the trifecta of visiting the 3 official residences of the queen, which are Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, and Holyrood.  We could not take pictures inside, but like the other palaces it contains lots of stuff you do not want to spill grape juice on.  I am now convinced that the tours take us through all of the antiques, and the royal family lives in fully updated and modern quarters elsewhere in the castles.  Highlights were the living quarters of Mary, Queen of Scots, the ruins if Holyrood Cathedral, and the Palace Gardens.

After completing our tour of Holyrood, we walked up the mile to find lunch.  We went to a pub called The Tolbooth Tavern.  I had a beef and ale pie, while Melissa had some sausages.  The food was good, the sausages especially so.  However, I am just about done with pub food for a while, and will be advocating for lighter fare until my stomach is ready again.

After recovering our laundry and taking a few hours off (most of the time dedicated to Melissa booking a place for the first night in Dublin) we decided to go get a light dinner.  We walked down Southbridge past the old university of Edinburgh to The City Cafe, which was a diner.  I had a small pizza and Melissa had pancakes.  He goal was to find a salad, but that is easier said than done over here.

During our Skype session we learned that our pitbull problem back home exploded.  Our neighbors pitbull came through the back fence again and barked wildly at out back door.  This particularly angers me because I have given these neighbors every warning in the world that this needs to stop.  This has already happened 3 times and all I have done is walk around the block and talk to them each time.  My poor parents, trapped in the house, called 911.  Both the police and animal control came.  The dogs went back into their own yard, but the cops were ready to shoot them if they didn't.  Good times...  These neighbors are renters, and I am hopeful that their lease will not be renewed after all of this trouble.

Fortunalely the boy was in bed and the cats were indoors for the night when all of this happened.  The only effect it had on Colton was him calling grandma into his room to ask everyone to be quiet so he and Riley could sleep.  What a trooper!