Edinburgh the Old and the New

I can't believe we have been traveling for near on a week.  I am suddenly talking like a Brit.  Sorry it just slips out.  We have been sitting in the bar at our hotel for a few hours trying to do some blogging and catching up.  I am listening to a conversation between to Scotsman and I can make out about every other word.  I forgot to tell you earlier that I finally got my camera to work and it has been working like a gem since.  It seemed to work fine in the hotel and soon as we would hit the streets of London it would freeze up.  All good now.  The above picture is of our morning tour of Edinburgh said Edinburah with a rolling of the R.  The Scottish like to roll their R's.  We were driving around looking at the old and new sides of the city.  The new side would be built in the 1700's or later.  How is that for new.  We have the most amazing view from our room and the most amazing view from the room in the bar.  Because we are so far north it is still quite light and  it is going on 9:00pm.  I have many more pictures but I am using Shelleys pics right now to blog.

Just a bit of greenery.  This was up in the hills a bit as we drove around.  I just love all of the green.  What am I going to do when I get home.  Maybe my lawn will look just as green with the rain and snow happening at home.

This is Hollyrood Palace.  One of the Queen's palaces in Scotland.  The other one is Balmoral.  It was closed and so we could not go in.  This is from the gate. 

Then it was more driving around the city.  Mind you this is still the new side. 

Now we are onto the old side.  This is Ediburgh Castle.  We got to tour this today.  It is built on an old volcanic hill.  This city is quite hilly because of the old volcanoes.

The castle is of course the walls and armaments around it.  Then in the castle is a large church and a very small church.  It houses the Scottish crown jewels which we could not take pictures of but you can Google them to see them. 

This is on one of the battlements looking out into the North Sea.  Look at the clouds looming.  Nary a drop of rain though.   P.S.  I just noticed our bus driver at the bar takin in a pint.  His name is Keith and he is a master of the bus on the road.  I have seen him miss another bus by 5 inches today.  Brilliant.

At the castle we ran into some Royal Scottish Dragoons. These are young lads in the army who I believe came out for photo ops with the tourists.  Anyway they are very young looking are they not?

Here is the Royal Mile.  It is the road that connects the Castle to the Palace that I spoke about earlier.  Lots of shops that we stopped at and did a wee bit of shopping.  Lots of tourism in these cities we stop at. 

Then we made it back to our hotel for some tea. 

It was cranberry tea and cakes and sandwiches.  It was quite tasty.  I can't believe all that we have seen.  It has been truly amazing.  The interesting thing about these cities is that they are not large cities.  We have been able to walk around all of them and see what we want to all on foot.  Other than swollen feet and plantar fascitis, I am in excellent spirits and looking forward to seeing Yorkshire tomorrow.