Glasgow to Edinburgh

*Of note, the proper pronunciation for Edinburgh is that the "burgh" part is like the "bru" in "brush".

Okay, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

We left Glasgow this morning around 8 and headed west ... coast to coast in Scotland (it's pretty narrow there). 

An hour's drive found us at Rosslyn Chapel, home to Dan Brown's book (read the Da Vinci Code ... fun read).  It was a beautiful chapel (not cathedral) set out a little south of Edinburgh.  From there we drove north a bit (toward Edinburgh) and Craigmillar Castle.  That was very cool.  It's a centuries old castle, no longer in use, but still in good condition.  It was a lot of fun to climb around and explore.  There were some fun views from the top as well. 

After that we drove up into Edinburgh and did a single stop for a walk/hike up Carlton Hill and a visit to the Palace of Holyroodhouse and Holyrood Abbey.  Carlton Hill (steep walk!) was high above the city and had fun views of the sea, Edinburgh Castle, St. Giles Cathedral, and basically all of the city.  There were also some fun climbing spots and Cyndie and Emma did some senior photo stuff up there.  The Palace of Holyroodhouse was a smaller manor style home, and is the Scottish residence of the Queen.  We did a fun audio guided tour and learned a lot about its history (Mary Queen of Scots was there a lot) and also the history of the Holyrood Abbey (now ruins) which are immediately adjacent (holyrood, if I understand it, was a medieval reference to the cross of Jesus, and the abbey there was said to have a shard of that cross; hence the name). 

It rained a bit in the afternoon, and more in the evening.  Especially as we got into our house.  The house is nice.  It's overlooking a fun/busy square and right next to the Royal Mile where we'll be spending lots of time tomorrow.  We had a fun dinner at a contemporary Scottish restaurant.  Then Dad and Cyndie went to get a few groceries and I took the kids to visit the grave of Tom Riddle (inspiration for a character in the Harry Potter movies).  Now it's LATE, and I'm ready for bed.  More tomorrow.  It will be nice to just hit things on foot and not fight the city traffic which is not great.

Lessons learned:

• Edinburgh traffic and parking are horrible!!
• It rains a lot in Scotland, and the folks here just deal with it.
• Edinburgh is a much more historic feeling city than Glasgow.