Edinburgh - Days 032 & 033

Tuesday was the day to see the last couple things I wanted to see in Edinburgh, and what a gorgeous day it was to see them!

The first thing I did was go to the National Museum of Scotland.  This time I was allowed to take pictures in the whole museum.  The museum's 7 levels were in chronological order of Scotland's earliest known history to the latest.  I spent way too much time reading every detail on the first 2 levels and then went quickly through the last few levels.  The top roof level had a very good view of the city.

After the museum, I picnicked then made my way up to Hollyrood hill.  It is a hill on the edge of town that looks over everything around.

Wednesday I spent most of my time trying to find the cheapest way to get out of Edinburgh.  I had been looking at buying a train ticket into England, but since I waited the price had gone up tremendously.  After hanging out at the train station for awhile, I walked down to the bus station where they had an overnight coach all the way to London for 18.50.  That was a great deal!  So then I hung around the bus station until 10:30 and then I was headed to London!

Edinburgh - Days 028 & 029

I toured a lot of galleries on Friday, most of which didn't allow me to take any pictures, but I enjoyed them all.

The whole week had been beautiful until Friday when the rain clouds came in. I was in the last gallery for the day, The National Gallery of Scotland, and as I was walking through I could hear the storm coming. I loved being inside looking at all the paintings and listening to the rain on the skylights and the thunder all around.

On Saturday morning I woke up really early. With my breakfast I ordered a cappuccino and it was really the best cappuccino I have ever had. Saturday was a very cold day, however, I felt really warm the whole day and I think it was because of the cappuccino.

I finally toured the castle. I'm glad I waited till Saturday because I had so much time to do it and my previous days were filled with multiple things on my list. There were lots of cool things to see in the castle and so much history. I really liked the prisoners of war section. You could see their living conditions, which I guess if you were prisoner of war the Edinburgh Castle wasn't that bad of a place. Also, their were doors with all the carvings of the prisoners. Some carvings were a bit questionable, like "John M was here 19/11/1990." I also enjoyed the Scottish Crown Jewels. These were jewels used in the coronation of royalty that were hidden for over 200 hundred years. Their existence was in doubt until 1818 they were finally uncovered. The Scottish Crown Jewels include: a crown, a sceptre, a sword, and my favorite the Stone of Destiny. Sadly, pictures were not allowed to be taken of the jewels.