Anniversary in Edinburgh

After a long journey from Bath, we finally arrived in Edinburgh. As we rode the bus from the airport to the hotel, both of us were in awe of how beautiful, and almost magical, the city looked. The buildings were very different from anything else we'd ever seen in Europe. That evening, we enjoyed walking around and getting a feel for the city. It was so laid back and relaxing. While we were out, the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, a marching band of drummers and bag pipers, was having a dress rehearsal, so we took advantage of a free mini-concert. As they left their rehearsal, we snapped a quick shot. I would not want to be wearing a skirt on such a windy night as this. Excuse me, it is a kilt.

The next morning was our 3 year anniversary! So I woke up and fixed myself really nice for the special day and Nate says... I think we should go for a hike. A hike!? I thought he had lost his mind. But it turned out for the best. There was a perfect hike that led to spectacular views over the city. We found some interesting ruins on our way up.

It was another windy day, but it was gorgeous the way the wind blew the grass.
We made it to the top! The wind made Nate look like he had a mohawk!

It was a breathtaking view!

The hiking trail was over a point called Arthur's Seat. You can really see the trail and the Edinburgh Castle in the distance.

Edinburgh is known for it's Royal Mile, which is a road that stretches a little over a mile from the Edinburgh Castle to the Palace of Holyroodhouse.
The Palace of Holyroodhouse. Another one of the Queen's many vacation homes.

At the other end of the Royal Mile is the Edinburgh Castle. We spent the afternoon exploring the castle grounds.
Every August, Edinburgh hosts one of the largest festivals in Europe. We arrived a few days too early, but many performers had arrived early as well and were putting on street shows along the Royal Mile. We were able to watch a juggling act, a bed-of-nails act, and a Houdini-inspired escape act. As you can tell by my face, we really enjoyed watching these shows!
Edinburgh was once the most crowded city in Europe; the result of some of the world's earliest skyscrapers.
As we ate a delicious desert, we watched the sun set over the Royal Mile. It was a great way to conclude a wonderful anniversary day!

Maria & Nate in Bath

The tour left Stonehenge and brought us to the city of Bath. Since we were spending the night in Bath, we abandoned the tour and explored the city on our own. Our first visit was the site of the Roman baths built over a series of hot springs. When the Romans ruled Britannia during the 1st century, the city was extremely popular because of these baths. So popular in fact, that the city simply became known as Bath. If you don't believe us, click on this picture to see it written in stone.

When the Romans headed back to Rome, the baths silted up and the city lost its appeal. In 1687, Queen Mary bathed here and within 10 months she gave birth to a son. She credited the conception to the healing powers of the waters and, as a result, the town became a popular spa resort for the rich and famous. Most of the buildings in the city, including the site of the Roman baths, were built according to the Georgian style that was popular in the 18th century. These pictures were taken inside the Roman baths:
The Pump Room is an elegant Georgian restaurant that was built above the Roman baths. We stopped and enjoyed a strawberry lemonade made from the water flowing out of the hot springs. The water flows out of the elegant fountain in the background of this picture.
Once put on ice, the drink was really tasty!
The city recently constructed the modern Thermae Bath Spa. Since we were staying in a city famous for its hot springs, we couldn't resist visiting.
There were four different steams rooms with different scents. Each one was so relaxing!
The spa's main heated bath is located on the roof and has commanding views of the city.
After feeling refreshed from the spa and getting a good night's sleep, we walked through the town and enjoyed its unique architecture the next morning.

This famous part of the city is called the Circus because it's a circular area surrounded by these large townhouses. Not surprisingly, the Latin word 'circus' means ring or circle.
Another famous part of the city is the Royal Crescent. This area is a semi-circle of townhouses overlooking the picturesque countryside. Due to its awkward shape, we had difficulty capturing it in a photo. We had to use a borrow and image from someone on the internet, which is why this is the only picture on our post that contains a blue sky.
A beautiful bridge.
Here's an example of the dreary weather. Our hotel was located on the other end of this beautiful park.Our hotel was appropriately named the Parade Park Hotel.
After touring the city, we took a bus to London, the Tube to King's Cross train station, a train to the Luton train station, a bus to the Luton airport, a plane to Edinburgh, and finally, a bus to the Edinburgh city center. We're exhausted just remembering all that traveling, so we need to take a break before we post our Edinburgh blog!

Windsor Castle & Stonehenge

Our guidebook highly recommended visiting the city of Bath. We also really wanted to see Stonehenge, since it was on the way to Bath. However, reaching Stonehenge by public transportation proved to be nearly impossible, so we purchased a tour that would take us to Bath while stopping at Windsor Castle and Stonehenge. We don't usually take tours, but this seemed like the perfect opportunity. When the tour bus picked us up from our hotel, we were surprised to learn that we would stop at Stonehenge only on the return trip from Bath to London. Since we purchased the tour just so we could see Stonehenge on the way to Bath, we were not pleased. Especially since when we booked the tour, we were repeatedly assured that Stonehenge would be a stop on the way to Bath. After some convincing, one of the tour guides finally agreed to stop at Stonehenge prior to reaching Bath. We were relieved!

Since we booked the tour only because of Stonehenge, we really had no expectations for Windsor Castle. We were pleasantly surprised! The castle is one of the Queen's many vacation homes. It also happens to be the largest inhabited castle in the world, with over 480,000 square feet! Here are some pictures of us exploring the castle grounds:
Although the outside of the castle was spectacular, the inside was even more impressive. We were able to walk through the Royal Staterooms and each room was over-the-top luxurious. The rooms were probably the most finely decorated and exquisitely furnished that we had ever seen.
We then headed to Stonehenge. We were so excited to see it! We've seen many photos of and TV programs about this place, so it was surreal to actually be standing in front of it. It's hard to believe that Stonehenge is older than the Pyramids! The stones themselves are huge, but the entire arrangement is not as large as the pictures would make you think. Regardless, we were still thrilled to have been able to visit Stonehenge.

Lovely London Continued...

Our itinerary for day two in London was very ambitious. There were still lots of sights to be seen. We started our morning at the Tower of London. Maria really liked this statue: This is where the old meets new. The Tower of London sits in the middle of many modern buildings. It's hard to believe that a 900 year-old building sits right across the street from buildings completed within the past 5 years! We did not tour the Tower, because entrance fees were $35 per person! With so many amazing free sights, we didn't think it would be worth the time or cost.

Fortunately, walking across the Tower Bridge is free!

Can you find me in this picture? Don't forget to click on it to make your search easier.

If you're having trouble finding me in the previous picture, I think I'm easier to spot in this one. We thought this would be a cool picture, so I made Maria run way ahead to capture it. Who am I kidding? I'm the one who had to backtrack! Anything for a great snapshot. As you can probably tell by now, we really enjoyed this bridge. However, we were surprised to learn that this is not THE London Bridge. You know, the one that is falling down. Here is the real London Bridge. Kind of makes you wonder why the song isn't about the Tower Bridge. Here is my favorite graduate with an English degree standing in front of Shakespeare's Globe Theater. It took about 3 hours for Maria to stop talking in olde English after seeing the Globe. Just kidding, she doesn't know how to speak that way because Cliff's Notes are not written in olde English! Oh yes, I went there! Departing the Globe, we headed to Tate Modern. This is a modern art museum and is displayed in a converted warehouse. Admission to this museum was also free! Now I must admit, I'm not a huge fan of modern art. In this picture, you can really see how I'm struggling to understand the artist's inspiration. What are those things lying all over the floor? Is that symbolic poop or something? I'm certainly open to any suggestions. Don't get me wrong, this museum certainly displayed many great pieces, but a few of them just confused me. Overall, we were very glad to have visited and we thought that it was definitely the best modern art collection we'd ever viewed. Here are some of our favorite works, along with some of the more interesting ones. I've left out the really disturbing ones. Don't forget to click the picture to enlarge it!

After leaving Tate Modern, we crossed the Millennium Bridge over the River Thames and walked towards St. Paul's Cathedral.

The unique handrail-looking things on the side of the bridge were actually designed to deflect the wind over the heads of pedestrians. As you can see from this picture, it seems to be working, especially when you compare this picture to the one of Maria on the bridge in our previous blog post. We really wanted to visit both the British Library and the British Museum before leaving London, but both of these sights were closing early, so we decided to only walk by St. Paul's Cathedral. This was a wise decision, because the British Library was one of the most impressive sights that we visited in London. The building itself was nothing special. It was a giant red-brick building and looked like it could have been part of NC State's campus. However, what made the British Library special was its display of rare documents and books. I think it must be the most impressive collection in the entire world. Here is a listing of a few items that we saw:

• Shakespeare's First Folio (first printed collection of his plays) (1623)
  
• Composition drafts by Handel (Messiah), Beethoven (6th Symphony), Schubert, Bach, and Mozart.
  
• Captain Robert Falcon Scott's diary from his tragic South Pole expedition (1911-1912)
  
• Gutenberg's Bible (1455)
  
• Original, hand-written version of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1862)
  
• 1st edition of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (1476)
  
• The Magna Carta (1215)
  
• 1st printed edition of the New Testament in English, translation by William Tyndale (1526)
• Leonardo da Vinci's notebook (1508 - 15219)
  
• Florence Nightingale's letters describing the conditions during the Crimean War (1854)
  
• Handwritten Beatle's lyrics to Help, I Wanna Hold Your Hand and a few others
  
• Portions of the Codex Sinaiticus (earliest surviving copy of the complete New Testament) (4th century)
• Vladimir Lenin's application for a British Museum reader's pass (1902)

Okay, Maria says that I've already listed enough, but I think you have the idea. The extent of the collection is truly amazing. Unfortunately, photography was not allowed, but Maria was able to sneakily snap a photo of the original Alice's Adventures in Wonderland:

In the center of the British Library, there is a display of King George III's book collection, called the King's Library. It reminded us of our collection of old books at our home in Raleigh, but of course, ours is not nearly as impressive or as old!

From the British Library, we hurried over to the British Museum. Our favorite exhibit was the famous Rosetta Stone. This stone was instrumental in unlocking the secrets of ancient hieroglyphic writing. You might have heard of the Rosetta Stone because of the language program that has the same name. We are actually using it to learn German.

The museum is filled with many artifacts from ancient civilizations. What set this museum apart from others for us, was that it allowed photography. As you can see, we took full advantage of this opportunity. After snapping all those photos, we were hungry, but desert before dinner? Only on vacation.
As we were walking down the street, we stumbled upon this... (this is for Maria's mom)
Big Ben! This time at sunset. One of Maria's favorite movies is Notting Hill. Since the suburb of Notting Hill is located just outside of London, I was forced to visit in hopes that Maria would recognize a street or house or something from the movie. She did not. However, all was not lost since the area was really nice, even if the parts that we saw were not in the movie.
Proof that we actually visited Notting Hill and proof of how excited Maria was.
Speaking of movies set in London, we also visited the train platform that was made famous by the Harry Potter movies. It is located in the imressive King's Cross Station.
London was like no other city that we have visited during our time in Europe. It has a similar energy to New York City, but has more historical sights. After two busy days in London, we were ready to see some of the English country side.