Holiday Photos #25

I said I planned to post holiday photos more frequently, but I haven't been doing a very good job of it. I have a few more of Edinburgh before we can get back on the train at Waverly Station.

This is a photo I took from atop a double decker bus. William loved riding on the top. I have to admit it was pretty fun to ride in the very front of the top section. It felt like no one was driving the bus! Hubby likes monkeys, so I had to show him the Monkey Temple. I wonder what sort of store it was, we didn't have enough time to stop and see.

We had so much fun on the ghost tour under the bridges, we took another tour in the evening to a cemetery. While walking through the city on the tour, we came across this rather boxed in nowhere spot just off the Royal Mile. It might be rundown, but it isn't forgotten, as you can see by the placement of one of the art cows in the bottom left corner. It's one of my favorite photos of the trip.

This was another spot we walked by on the tour. We went back later when the shop was open and it was indeed a shop for witch's supplies. And check out the street sign - Candlemaker Row.

This pub and statue is just outside Greyfriar's Cemetery. Most people seem to have heard of Greyfriar Bobby (that's the dog, in case, like me, you'd never heard the name before). Since I hadn't heard of him, I wasn't very impressed, but I guess he's famous, so we took a photo of him and saw his master's grave in the cemetery.

Here's a photo taken from inside the cemetery, but it's the only one I'll show you this post. I'll save the rest of the ghost tour for the next post. I just wanted to show you this to say - see the two windows lit with a golden light in the middle of the image? That's the window of the coffee house where J K Rowling sat and wrote much of Harry Potter and the Sorcercer's Stone. Or, if you're reading the UK version, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Cool, huh!

We went in search of it the next day and found it, a place called The Elephant House. At least, we thought we found it. Maybe the tour guide had been wrong, there didn't seem to be any sort of "birthplace of Harry Potter" sign or anything. I asked an employee and they assured me I was in the write..., er right place and that he thought there were a couple of photos about it over on their bulletin board. I liked that they didn't make a big deal out of it. Still, I couldn't help but be secretly thrilled (okay, maybe not so secretly) to be sitting in the same place Rowling had sat, maybe drinking my coffee from the same cup she'd once sipped while struggling through a particularly rough chapter.

Proof that it is indeed a small world (are you gonna get that song stuck in your brain now!? Sorry), we bumped into some fellow travelers we'd met at the B&B in Bath. They joined us for lunch and then we all posed for this photo in front of the coffee house.

Here's the sad part. We exchanged e-mail addresses and when I got home I fully intended to e-mail them a copy of this photo. But somehow I misplaced or tossed all the information I saved with people's names and e-mails. Not just these folk but everyone's e-mails that I had collected the entire trip. I was and still am mucho bummed.

But maybe, by some miraculous coincidence, someone might know these people? The man's name is Stuart. Or perhaps Stewart. Didn't ask him how he spelled it. I can't remember his wife's name -argh. The older woman is her mother. His mother? Her name is Mary. Mary lived in Colorado - Denver area I believe. The couple were from San Diego area and were planning on moving to Colorado in the near future. Anyone? Really nice people. They probably think I'm a total flake. Well, I suppose I am. I lost the info.

Next holiday post I'll get back to the ghost tour and cemetery. It was frightfully fascinating!