Month: May 2023

We arrived at the train station about 6 PM after a 4 hour ride from London. The hotel was about 4 blocks away and no taxi wanted to take us. Central Edinburgh was extremely busy, like wall to wall people busy so we hauled our bags uphill to the and checked in.  Looking for a place to eat we found everything was filled and booked. It seemed there was a big concert and other things going on that night. We did finally get some food and called it a night. It should be noted that Edinburgh is almost as far north as Stockholm or even Anchorage so being about 3 weeks away from the solstice  means it is still light at 10:30 in the evening and light before 5 in the morning. While walking around looking for a place to eat we found that all statues apparently are required to have a seagull.

Randi got in about 9 and we were ready to start the big tour Sunday morning.

Sunday morning we went to the Botanical Gardens and walked around and had a couple hour tour. Had a lot of nice trees and flowers, like these nice blue ones.

For the most part the entire place was similar to this.

Edinburgh was a medical center during the 18th and 19th centuries so Sunday afternoon we visited the surgery museum. Since no photography was allowed inside because of having body parts skeletons and other stuff this is the outside.

It was not clear if they ever figured out what made these people green. After a wonderful dinner that night, I just don’t remember where although it might have been an Italian place we walked around. Somewhere along the way this picture was taken.

Monday brought an agenda of  lunch at the Witchery, a high end restaurant that is one of those eat in the dark big plate small food places, and a visit to the Edinburgh Castle.  The bus stop to leave to the castle area.

One building on the way had a statue of a guy playing quoits for some reason.

We get to the restaurant and the guy seats us and we order. I had the cold raw meat with a raw egg on top and fries. For those that understand such things I shot this at ISO 6400 just to show how dark the place was.

After lunch we walked up the street to the castle. I should note that all streets are uphill in Edinburgh.

Like most castles it had a bunch of history stuff. Because it is built on top of a big hill overlooking the city it has a lot of views.

With most of the city North of the castle when looking south things quickly evolve into countryside.

If you were one of the many cannon operators you had this view.

Listening to some important historical information.

After the castle visit and a late afternoon rest we wen to a 100+ year old pub for some pub food. The food was not great but the pint was OK and to top it off but who would come in and sit right beside us, that right, Mr and Mrs King Chuck King of England.

Randi was of the opinion that it was not them but I’m not so sure.

Tuesday we got on one of those bus things and rode around looking at stuff. London that was OK. Here it was pretty much all the same and not so good. We had a noon lunch at an oyster bar so we got off the bus and walked a few blocks uphill to the restaurant. I had the fish and chips but Mary and Randi had like half the fish in the ocean.

Late afternoon we went for a tour of the underground area which is whats left of some of the 1600 era streets and houses. It’s directly under city hall so no pictures but it did exhibit life of that time and the last plague that killed about 1/3 of the 30000 population.

Randi left to return home this morning and Mary and I will probably hit up a museum this afternoon to finis up our trip. Then tomorrow back to London to return home Friday.

 

Wednesday morning we headed out via the famous London tube system to the British Library gaze upon the Magna Carta. Upon gazing it looked like this.

From there we went to the British museum and looked at a lot of old stuff.

Thursday was the big Flower show. This was a thing that went on all week and is apparently a really big deal. King Chuck King of England spent Monday there. There was maybe 1/2 to 1 mile long street with booths of people selling flower stuff. There were a number of competition show gardens and a big building with another huge quantity of flower stuff. Heading into the big show.

One of the displays was from a guy that spent an awful amount of time carving trees and apparently trying to sell them.

One aspect of this show was to demonstrate that middle age and old English women are world class at elbowing their way through crowds to get where they want. Around the show gardens the crowds would be 5 or 6 deep and these ladies would get right up front in no time. From this picture about 80% of the way down the main street you can see some of these women with their armed elbows.

The big time winning Japanese garden had this weird big wall of growing things that no one is quite sure how they did it but it was quite soft.

We spent most the day there and were quite tired when we were done.

Today we did one of the  hop on hop off bus things to get us around all of London. This is not the bus.

Our bus was like the one on the left.

We wondered around the Trafalgar square  house of parliament area. This shot like maybe 100000 others taken today from the bridge over the Thames by all the other tourists that were there.

Looking to your right you have this view of the river and the Eye of London.

Ol’ Big Jim Bob (or what ever the name is) has a lot of extra doodads. And as an added benefit we were there to hear it strike 12.

About 3 blocks away is the square where we took the opportunity to have some genuine fish and chips.

The view out of the window.

This from 1 bridge up river is the last we saw of central London.

Our final stop of the day was Buckingham Palace. I thought that I finally might meet up with King Chuck King of England but when we got there only tourists were in attendance. The palace itself is just this big building that apparently we were not allowed to enter.

It does have a nice gate to keep us commoners out.

Out front they had a big statue thing with this golden thing on top. Don’t know if it is anyone famous.

Since we were only about a half mile from the hotel through a, as they say here, lovely park we started back to the hotel through it. We found a bench part way and had a sit to soak up some sun and watch people.

I looked around and thought “holy crap is that Mr. and Mrs. King Chuck King of England?” I thought about it and decided it most likely was not because they were not wearing the hats with all the diamonds and stuff on them.

So, with London done tomorrow it is off to Scotland. I’ve decided not to try to go to the source of the Smith clan as 1. its about a 4 hour drive, on the wrong side of the road, and would take too much brain power, and 2. the town itself appears from Google street view to  be a cross road with  4 or 5 houses going off in each direction and no sign of a cemetery to look for dead relatives. I’m sure we will find something to look at.

 

 

After a 7 hour flight and being up about 24 hours we arrived and by way of train,walking and taxi got to our hotel where we immediately collapsed onto the bed for a couple hours. Then mid afternoon we were up and across the street into Hyde Park to walk around and look at stuff. The first place we came to was the rose garden. This is an area that has roses. In the middle it also had a statue.

I have no idea what the name of this statue is, I’m sure it is something meaningful. They also had benches to sit on so we did.

Some of the roses looked like this.

While we were sitting there I thought King Chuck the King of England walked by but  after thinking about it for a while I decided it wasn’t him as he didn’t do anything kingly.

From the rose garden we continued on and got to the small lake that is there and had a refreshing Coca Cola at the food place and set and just soaked up sun  and watched the swans and a duck nest that was made from twigs and trash.

We walked a bit more of the park and then headed up Piccadilly St looking for food and after walking better than a mile we ended up in a place and had an excellent, if expensive, meal of a mix of Peruvian and Chilean cuisine.

Today we got up, had breakfast and hit the underground to get to Tower hill and The Tower of London. We spent a few hours there learning how it was home of English royalty for the first 500 years of English history and then became a place where cutting off heads was apparently a family tradition. This is also where you can see the royal jewels. The nuts thing was that the line to get into this part had to be at least 2 hours long. First off I didn’t understand how King Chuck King of England had that kind of time to stand around with his “jewels” hanging out and more so why that many people wanted to see them. After touring the tower we crossed the street to a coffee place and had a refreshing coffee and a cinnamon roll to hold us while we returned to Piccadilly Circus so Mary could try to shop. While enjoying the refreshing coffee I was sure King Chuck King of England was sitting at a table nearby. After thinking about it for a while I decided it couldn’t be him because he was still across the street showing his jewels.

We are now off to find this evenings expensive meal. Tomorrow is the Magna Carta and the British Museum. If we are lucky King Chuck King of England may be there.