Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Castles, Pubs and Harry Potter!

Monday, June 13 ~ Edinburgh, Scotland

Edinburgh has an old town and a new town; the "center" is relatively easy to navigate (even though Doris and I misplaced our hotel) but filled with construction. All in all, a great city, where we saw Holyrood Palace (which stands at one end of the Royal Mile, with Edinburgh Castle at the other), and Mary Queen of Scots Tower. Our local guide for the morning was Margaret, who was 80 years young, and climbed the stairs all over Edinburgh Castle livelier than any of the rest of us!

Edinburgh Castle. How's they do that?!

A view from atop the Castle.

Inside the Castle.

Looking down the Royal Mile. Busy and fun!

Amazing architecture!

The Elephant House coffeehouse & pub, where JKR wrote her early Potter books. My Scottish Graceland!

It really IS full of elephants! Very kitschy : )

Loved it.

This was walking forwards. Then he walked backwards!

Made a stop at the Mitre Bar for lunch. I cruised up to the bar and asked the young barkeep what he could suggest that was "dark and Scottish". He said, "Do you mean beer?" Uhhh, yeah! What did he think I meant?! And don't you love the saying on the bar?!

When we couldn't find our way back to the hotel, we stopped at the local police station. At least we knew the name of the hotel, which apparently not many people do, according to the nice woman who helped us. No, Terry (our guide), the hotel is not just right down the street like you told us earlier!

Dinner at the the Conan Doyle. I found "Rob" in the ladies room here. He laughed at me and said "You're in the gents room!", and laughed until I showed him the little picture of the lady in the dress on the toilet door. Hahahaha! The pubs here are plentiful & fabulous! Yeah, I liked Scotland alot!

Print Friendly and PDF