I'm about to set off on the great feat of trying to remember and explain what we did in Scotland over the past week. Depending on the length, I think I will be posting the days separately and just changing the upload dates to when they actually happened. Just so you know!
So we woke up this morning and decided to go to Edinburgh Castle. We walked down the High Street (main street) and got some breakfast. We sat in Parlaiment Square and ate and looked for the meeting place for ghost tour we were taking this afternoon. Then we walked up to the Castle. It was aboslutely breathtaking. The city is surrounded by two dormant volcanoes and the castle is at the top of one of them. This meant that we could see the entire city from inside the castle walls. We took a tour and explored all of the small museums inside. It really helped to give us a basic history lesson of Edinburgh and Scotland in general. I now have so many facts about Scottish history saved in my head.
The castle has been used for many things. It has been a residence for the royal family, an army prison, and an army barracks. Part of the grounds are still used as army barracks.
The view of Edinburgh Castle from right outside the door of our hostel.
View of the city from the castle. Our hostel is the building on the other side of the street on the left.
Edinburgh Castle
North view of Edinburgh. With Fife across the water (Firth of Forth).
Lion outside of a church in the castle.
Cemetery for soldiers' dogs.
Looking northeast.
View from a higher part of the grounds.
What the army prison barracks would have looked like.
After the castle we went on a ghost tour with Anna. (This is the second tour of our trip, make sure you're keeping count). We had a very....interesting guide. She was a bit too much for my taste but she did a good job of teaching us about all of the history of the dark side of Edinburgh. The city is known as the "Jekyll and Hyde City" because of it's very dark side and the fact that the book was written and based there. That was really cool for Jill and I because we just read that book for class so were were pretty well versed in the story. On our tour we first learned about different punishments that would be publicly shown in the center of the city. Then, we moved down in to the Edinburgh vaults. I didn't know that they even existed. The vaults were built under the city a very long time ago. They were originally used as storage but quickly turned into a sort of slum. There was a lot of disease and a lot of crime. We also learned about some ghosts that had been seen down there. It was creepy and cool and I liked it. After we got back, Alex Raffini commented on one of my Facebook posts reminding me of a Ghost Adventures episode that was filmed in the vaults. Now, for those of you who don't know, I love Ghost Adventures. I think the show is absolutely ridiculous but for some reason I watch it every single time it's on. So, if anyone is interested I found the entire episode on YouTube HERE or you can watch a recap of the episode below. They go through all of the rooms we went through and talk about all of the ghosts we learned about. It's cool to rewatch the episode and recognize all of the places they are in.
After our tour Jill and I ran to Boots to get a few things and took a few more pictures of the city. I still can't get over how beautiful it is.
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