As I said in the last post, we didn’t get home until after midnight yesterday and were just too exhausted to even think about blogging. But it was well worth it!
It was a very long day starting in Edinburgh at 9am. Our B&B is about a mile from town centre, but it is completely uphill. We opted to buy a bus pass and go that route instead since we’ve been on our feet nonstop this whole trip it seems like.
We started off just walking down the Royal Mile checking out the area heading up to the Edinburgh Castle to explore. Kevin and I both agree that Stirling Castle was much better than the Edinburgh one however the Edinburgh Castle is the most visited. It did have a POW (Prisoner of War) set up to show how the POWs lived during times of war which was pretty interesting. Americans weren’t considered POWs, they were considered treasoners and were locked in a dungeon inside the POW camp right next to the British dungeon which was slightly better than the Americans.
Leaving the castle, we walked through The Fringe Festival which is basically a huge street fair that advertises for performances happening all over the city throughout August. We saw a couple of different street performers which was pretty cool, but we didn’t investigate much into seeing any shows.
We headed down the bottom of the huge hill next to see Hollyrood Palace which is Queen Elizabeth II’s official residence when she visits Scotland. We didn’t see a need to actually pay to tour it, but we did see it. The Palace just happened to be across from the Scottish Parliament however which just so happened to be in session yesterday. Having studied international politics in college, I was just drooling thinking about all the great things we will hear in a Parliament session! We sat for about 30 minutes through it and listened to them discuss some boring financial stuff, but we also heard them debate the pros and cons of voting for Independence in the upcoming election. It was cool to be a part of that history, even if it is just a tiny little part. Now I just have to sit and wait to see what happens with the election.
Trying to kill time, we ended up walking into the National History Museum of Scotland. I’m so glad we did too, because I was able to see a real like guillotine! I’ve definitely done enough research on these (*cough* four hour documentary, 2 books *cough*), so it was so cool finally being able to see one in person. That’s probably a terrible sounding thing to say, but what an impressive looking contraption!
The main event of the evening, however, was the Edinburgh Military Tattoo! The day had finally come for us to see it, and what a spectacular show it was! We had amazing seats directly in front. Different countries come to Edinburgh every year for three weeks to perform. There were Zulu dancers from Africa, Highland dancers from Scotland, Scottish pipes, pipe band from Wisconsin, Shetland fiddlers from the Shetland Islands, Royal Marine band, New Zealand Aboriginal dancers, Singapore band/dancers, and more. It was basically a huge marching band competition, ah-mazing. It really was well worth the wait! They perform in front of the Edinburgh Castle which makes the surroundings sooo much cooler! BBC was actually there taping last night, so we may be famous (I mean, I already am…). We will be buying the DVD of it when it comes out.
Needless to say, we were exhausted by the time we got home!
Oh you know… just the guillotine. Soo cool!
Waiting for the Tattoo to start! You can see the castle in the background. Turns out, they REALLY made it in to a background throughout the show.
Highland Dancers starting one of their dances for the show with the castle all lit up for the theme.
A bunch of the performers playing and dancing together. Very, very cool. Highly, highly recommend doing this to anyone!
