Holiday Photos #27

Months ago I said I was going to get back to posting my holiday photos and wrap it all up. Well, that didn't happen, did it. But I've only got a few more months before I'll have hit the two year anniversary of our trip. I think there's probably an expiration date on sharing holiday photos, so I'm going to try to finish them up.

Last post, I left you in Edinburgh's Greyfriars Cemetery. (If you're new to my holiday photo posts and want to see what you've missed so far, you can type "Holiday Photos" into the Search/This Blog window above and find the previous posts) I showed you a lot of spooky photos but I forgot to add this last, far less sinister photo of apple blossoms fallen on the cobblestones. There were some creepy looking crypts but for the most part I find cemeteries peaceful places.


The last evening in Edinburgh, we decided to climb to the top of this ridge that towers over the city. I don't know what it's called. There was a fairly easy incline that went up from the bottom of the Royal Mile to a path that runs halfway up, along the top of the green rim you see. Of course we didn't take that path. Someone suggested we take the path that began behind the ridge, that it was easily accessible from some back streets that weren't far from our B & B a few miles away.


So we jumped on the bus and found the back path. You can see the very edge of those cliffs on the left hand side of the photo below. We also discovered that behind that ridge was another taller peak, center of the photo, called Arthur's Seat. William wanted to climb that instead. I told him "Absolutely not!"

So we took off for that first ridge and climbed up a nice wide smooth path to the front of the ridge you saw in the first photo. By now it had changed from misting to raining and daylight was moving towards twilight. Here's William walking ahead of me on the path.


After we'd walked all the way along the ridge to where we'd first seen it from the city below, William was still desperately pining to climb the higher peak. Honestly, I didn't think I was up for it but William wanted to climb it so badly I said we'd try. After all, we could always turn around if necessary, yes? Here's William ahead of me, climbing some of the sixty million rock steps that were built on the steepest part of the incline. I felt like we were Sam and Frodo, climbing up the hidden steps into the mountains of Mordor.


Here we are, unbelievably, at the top of the steps. But we're not there yet. The top third or so of the path wove up and around mounds and slopes. Below us you can see the ridge of cliffs we'd climbed first.
But we did it. Amazing! Well, maybe not so much for William, who is young and athletic and seemed as much at home as a mountain goat. Here's William at the very top.


But me, now THAT'S amazing! Here's proof of me up on top.



By then it was raining hard and the wind was fierce. You can hear the wind if you play William's video. He catches me in the view a couple of times.

The other people you see in the video told us they'd come up from the other direction and that their route had been STAIRLESS. Stairless sounded like a fantastic plan to me so we went down the other direction. It was a much gentler slop but it also went a much longer distance.

Towards the bottom of the path we came across these old ruins. Being from California, where grass has to be planted, it was amazing to see all this grass just growing everywhere. WILD grass. Also, the yellow flowering bushes in most of these photos is called Scotch Broom. I recognized it right away because it also grows all along the northern California coast. SCOTCH Broom, it's native here. I doubt they'll ever eradicate it in California even though there it's on the Noxious Weed list. Still, I've always found it pretty.


At the end of the trail we found ourselves back where we'd started earlier in the day at the bottom of the Royal Mile. Raining hard, most of the buses had stopped running. We were soaking wet and exhausted. Still, William took a moment to do an imitation of a statue.

We had to wait about forty minutes for a bus but we finally made it back to our B & B where we changed into warm dry clothes, grabbed a couple umbrellas, and found a nearby warm, cozy restaurant.


In the morning we got off to an early start and on the way to Waverly Station we saw the sun for the first time since our arrival. Despite all the gray and wet, the weather didn't dampen our love for this city of spires and closes. But, it was time to get on the train. Several hours later we would disembark and find ourselves in.......

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!