I guess you could say that this is the true first day of the journey. Here is the view from our hotel room:
After getting up and going we headed out to Edinburgh Castle. We headed out of our hotel, which was right across from Princess Gardens, and up the hill to the castle. This was Mom's first experience with "the close" or as we call them in the States, alleyways. We ventured past the National Gallery and the gardens and up the close. This brought us out to the Royal Mile which we ventured up headed towards the castle.
As we approached the castle we realized that we were experiencing the "French Invasion", the castle was packed with hoards of French rugby fans. But no bother, this was not going to stop us from experiencing the castle in all of its glory. We headed up through the main castle gate and through the many museums (The National War Museum, The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards Museum, The Royal Scots Museum), the Royal Palace, the Honours of Scotland, and the Scottish National War Memorial. Mom and I had a fabulous time taking some fun pics (see below).
From the kilt/wool museum we headed down the Royal Mile to St. Giles Cathedral, which I did not get a chance to see the last time I was here. We wandered around the kirk for a while, the most interesting part being The Thistle Chapel, which is the place of worship of the Knights of the Thistle.
We continued to wander the Royal Mile for a bit until we turned around and headed back up the hill towards the Scotch Whiskey Experience. Unfortunately they have upgraded the Scotch Whiskey Experience from the last time I was there and it was less like a Disney ride and more like a sophisticated educational experience. The best part was definitely the tasting and the collection of 3,000+ scotches. (I believe that is what my heaven will look like ;)
Due to the 6 Nations Rugby Match between Scotland & France, the majority of the city was closed so we wandered down to Greyfriar Bobby's Pub for a pint and some pub food and the match. Unfortunately the match ended badly for Scotland but we enjoyed some good times.
After a quick pop back to the hotel for a nap, we headed back out into the night for dinner at Deacon Brodie's (Deacon Brodie was the inspiration for the famous Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde). When we got to the restaurant we headed upstairs to the dining room, where we promptly ran into a long line waiting for a table (mostly French). After putting our names on the list we had our first (of many) pints while we waited in line for our table. Once we had gotten close to being seated the wait staff let us know that it would be at least 50 minutes after we placed our order until we would get our food. We stated that would be fine and settled in at our table. We decided that we would start our meal with dessert first, a fabulous dish called cranachan, which made the French around us none too happy. Approximately 30 minutes after we had been seated, a table of 3 received all of their meals before all of the French tables who then proceeded to make our poor waiters night miserable. They started pounding their silverware on the table and obnoxiously chanting like small children when they are hungry. Mom and I thought that we were going to see a "French Revolution" in the dinning room when our appetizer came before any of their food came. We enjoyed the rest of our meal and headed out to the pubs.
We started our night at the Royal Oak, hoping to listen to traditional Scottish music but soon after we got there the French arrived taking over the pub and overpowering the traditional music with French songs. So we decided to take off to the next pub, The Captain's. At Captain's we had another pint and some great music. We ended up closing the pub and having an absolutely amazing time.
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