Scotland

We just got back from our first official trip on this European adventure and it was awesome.  We decided to rent a car and break up the journey from London to Edinburgh with a stop in York.  I also thought it would be fun to give driving on the other side of the road a try.  We were upgraded by Enterprise from the smallest possible car to a brand new Prius:)  It took us about 10 minutes to figure out how to work a hybrid but once we did we were good to go and Dan did a wonderful job staying on the left side of the road (most of the time;))  Our Prius also came with a built in navigation system which was crucial considering the Garmin we bought on Amazon for this trip ended up not working at all; it for some reason kept putting us "near" but not quite on the road and then constantly "recalculating" because it thought we were driving through fields.  Hopefully we can fix it before driving through Spain or we will be in real trouble!

York is a quaint city in an area of England known as "The Dales."  The city was the ancient capitol of the north of England during the Roman Empire.  The medieval city walls are still in tact and the cathedral, the York Minster, is the 2nd largest Gothic Cathedral in the world (the largest being in Seville, Spain.)  We spent the night at a quirky B&B, The Old Grey Mare:

It was a cute place with a pub downstairs and 9-10 rooms upstairs.  It was certainly the budget option of B&B's, complete with old beach towels substituting as bath towels but for a quick place to sleep along the way, it worked great.

We spent the morning walking the city walls:

 visiting the York Minster, built between 1291 and 1350:

and shopping and exploring the Old Town, including the main shopping drag known as "The Shambles" where each floor hangs over a little further into the street than the one below it making it look like the buildings may topple over at any minute.

We walked through several outdoor markets and even happened upon the York Chocolate Festival:) We had a couple of pints at the Punch Bowl pub before getting back in the car and continuing on to Scotland.

We arrived in Scotland, checked into the lovely Hilton Edinburgh, and had dinner at the Whiski Rooms where Dan had his first scotch in Scotland after choosing from a selection of over 500!

The next morning we got to the Edinburgh Castle right when it opened, opting out of the tour and deciding just to wander around ourselves.  Walking up to the castle is really breathtaking and the views from the top are great.

After the castle we walked down the famous "Royal Mile" the main high street through the center of the Old City.  We took the "Real Mary King's Close Tour" which takes you through the now underground "closes" that used to make up the busiest and poorest part of the city in the 1600s.  Each close was a narrow alleyway between 6-7 story buildings with shop fronts along the ground floor.  Families lived in cramped and unsanitary conditions; they even used to dump their "toilet buckets" into the streets to let the waste run down into the obviously very contaminated "loch" where the Princes Street gardens are now located.

After the tour we went into St. Giles Cathedral, also along the Royal Mile.

We then popped into a mexican restaurant for lunch, odd choice I know but Dan and I have decided that we are going to try mexican in every European city we visit and see if we can find an unlikely winner:)  This place was pretty sub par but we weren't expecting much from Scotland.

We continued down to the end of the Royal Mile and visited the Palace of Holyrood House.  This is still a functioning palace and is the official residence of the queen when she visits Scotland and was also where Mary, Queen of Scots, spent a lot of time during her turbulent reign.

The most beautiful part of the palace was the gardens and the ruins of the Holyrood Abbey:

After the palace we climbed up Calton Hill for great views of the entire city:

We finished the day with dinner at La Piazza, a delicious Italian place near our hotel.

The next morning we drove up to St. Andrews.  We played the Eden Course, one of seven at the St. Andrews links.  Considering we hadn't played in 4 months, Dan and I both did pretty well; Dan shot 79, I had a 101.

After our round, we made our way over towards the Old Course, which is closed to play on Sundays and the public can walk along the fairways and greens.  It was an amazing experience for a couple of golf lovers.  The really cool thing about St. Andrews is that even though it is arguably the most famous golf course in the world and the birthplace of the game, there is surprisingly little pretension.  Anyone can play, even the Old Course if you book in advance, there are no golf carts or ball washers, we walked right into the clubhouse and got a table for lunch, no dress code, it's just about the golf.

We spent the rest of the day walking around the town and visiting the castle and cathedral:

Monday we headed to Rosslyn Chapel, which is the chapel featured at the end of the Da Vinci Code movie.  Legend says the crypt, which contains buried members of the St. Clair family, who have links to the Knights Templar, also contains the Holy Grail.  As the family refuses to excavate under the chapel, we will never know.  The chapel was really fascinating.  It is full of hidden symbolism and amazing stone carving.  Unfortunately, we could not take photos inside and the outside was covered in scaffolding, but I did get a couple shots:

 We also walked down the hill to see the remains of the Rosslyn House, where the ancestors of the family still live:

 Unfortunately, our trip ended with a miserable drive back to London through pouring rain and tons of traffic making a 6 hour drive turn into 9, ugh.  But overall, it was a great first trip!  Next stop, Prague!!