Edinburgh Onward

The Ross Fountain in beautiful Princes Street Gardens

 

View from Salisbury Crags, Holyrood Park

The way up.  The yellow is gorse, a very stickery shrub.

More Princes St Gardens

Delightful place, Edinburgh.  After two days we moved on north toward Inverness and Skye.

St Andrews, the birthplace of golf

The ruins of St Andrews Cathedral.  After golf was invented, I guess no one went there on a Sunday any more....?  Just kidding.

Inverness Castle in the early evening

Site of the Battle of Culloden, last full scale battle on British soil

Eilan Donan Castle

Village of Portree, Isle of Skye

The Old Man of Storr, the vertical stone in the distance

The Broadford Hotel

Legend says that Bonnie Prince Charlie fled to Skye after his defeat at the Battle of Culloden, and, despite a huge reward offered for his capture, he was given refuge on this very site by Captain John MacKinnon.  As an expression of his gratitude, Bonnie Prince Charlie gave MacKinnon the secret recipe for the potent elixir that had been devised especially for the Prince during his exile in France.  We know this drink today as Drambuie .

Sailing Loch Lomond

Next -- on to Ireland

Scotland - Edinburgh

I don't know why Edinburgh seems to be my favorite spot that we visited in the UK, unless it has to do with my family connection to the border clan Johnstones, reivers and rustlers of long ago.

Piper at Gretna Green, just across the border from England

Haggis there in the center, not near as bad as I anticipated

Our Insight Tours Group at Edinburgh Castle

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemo_me_impune_lacessit

Inside Edinburgh Castle with the Forth of Firth in the background

Looking down on the city.  The red stone building is our hotel, the Waldorf-Astoria

View to the north

St Margaret's Chapel, from 1130, oldest existing structure in Edinburgh, having been spared by Robert the Bruce when he destroyed the rest of the castle in 1314

St Margaret

William Wallace

Windows added in the 20th century inside the chapel.

The castle was a hoot, and then we moved on just steps away to lunch at The Witchery.  Shannon looks a little bewitched by the surroundings.

But me, I'm just tickled pink to find on the wine list Dead Arm shiraz from the D'Arenberg winery, McLaren Vale, Australia.

Wicked awesome stuff!

Lincoln and York

Continuing northward toward Scotland.

  

The view of Lincoln Cathedral from Lincoln Castle

Inside the walls.  We saw one of the four remaining copies of the Magna Carta.  Very tiny writing.

Atop the walls

Looking into neighbors' back yards from the wall

Street leading to the Lincoln Cathedral

From Lincoln we journeyed on north to York, once the Viking capital of Britain.

York Cathedral

York Cathedral is very old of course, and it had an infamous neighbor at the turn of the 17th century, a man named Guy Fawkes.  He grew up right across the street.  There goes the neighborhood.

After a night in York, where they have a great Viking Museum BTW, we continued northward through the Lake District, stopping at Grasmere, a village known for being the site of the poet Wordsworth's grave, and for a culinary delight called Sarah Nelson's Original Celebrated Grasmere Gingerbread.

A Ginger eating gingerbread

Oxford and Stratford-upon-Avon

Heading north out of London we began our 23 day adventure under grey skies but with good spirits, thanks to Dylan Jones, our loquacious Insight Tours guide, whose father had taught at Oxford University.  And then the sun came out.

"The College is Closed"

After lunch we traveled on to Shakespeare's birthplace, Stratford-upon-Avon.

Upstairs in Willie's house

A cold one at the famous Black Swan

White swan on the River Avon

MORE LONDON

Early on May 19th we touched down at Heathrow Airport for a three week long adventure touring the UK.  We began with two days in London and ended there with four nights more, to recuperate from 4440 kilometers of running around, plus two ferry crossings of the Irish Sea, and overnight stays in 15 different hotels.  Whew!  At least the people there spoke English.  Sorta.

Insight Tours calls this tour Romantic Britain and Ireland but the early AM wake-up calls and bleary-eyed coach departures did little to encourage romance, seemed to me. 

Tower Bridge

As I mentioned previously ( http://itinerantdurangotangs.blogspot.com/2015/05/london.html  ) we had enjoyed a brilliant performance of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time at the Gielgud Theatre in the West End before heading north toward Scotland....

...and on our return three weeks later we saw a fun version of The Commitments (one of my all-time favorites as a movie) at the historic Palace Theatre. 

And we walked and walked and walked, seeing the usual sights of this vibrant metropolis -- palaces, parks, pubs and restaurants:

Alimentary, my dear Watson

Wine Merchant

Reflection of The Shard, along the Thames

We spent a lot of time at the British Museum, #1 tourist draw in the UK -- with good reason!

The Rosetta Stone
Seriously, the original Rosetta Stone

Ireland, Wales, Cornwall, Oh My!

STONEHENGE ROCKS!

25 days, 4440 kilometers by land coach, two ferry crossings of the Irish Sea plus two trans-Atlantic flights, and fifteen hotels.  Wow.  More -- much more -- yet to come.