Tales of a Shoebox Princess

 Had I known this was very near Edinburgh, I would have planned to spend the afternoon/evening here. As it was, by the time we had found Salsbury Crags and thought we might like to have a hike, we were already kind of footsore. This is at the Scottish Parliament house, before we realized the hikable nature of this hill.  We had seen some people on the hill as we got closer and realized that it was a popular place to walk around. I convinced Jim that we should go over and investigate. From part way up the hill we could see this nice place to live The view was gorgeous all the way around See? People up there.  My view of Jim's view Ruins attached to the very nice place to live! (Holyrood house? Holyrood Abbey?) I'd go up there to look around too. We only made it up about a third of the way. We knew we had a ways to go to walk back and didn't want to wear ourselves out too early. Someday I want to go back to Edinburgh and walk around Holyrood park. On our way back to find so...

My grandma was born in Scotland and emigrated when she was a toddler. It's always been a bucket list item for me to set foot in her native country. I didn't make it to the town she was born in, but I did get up to Edinburgh. This was our first opportunity to ride in one of the trains (not the London Underground). Our train was scheduled to leave from King's Cross! We left pretty early because we did not to miss the train due to not knowing where anything was. And also we didn't have anything else to do. I have read the Harry Potter series many times, so being at King's Cross station was informative. Also we got there so early that the prop cart hadn't been set up yet. I did not know it was maintained by the Harry Potter gift shop right next to it (I didn't know there was a Harry Potter gift shop right there) pasty and egg sandwich and hot chocolate and diet Coke for breakfast I'm probably ruining the magic by snapping a photo of the prop cart being set u...

When we did the Hop on/Hop off bus, we realized that our ticket was good for a half-hour cruise on the Thames and we decided that the day we do the Tower of London tour would be a good day to follow up with the Thames boat cruise. The dock was only a very short walk away from the Tower. And on the walk from the Tower to the boat dock, we got a nice close up of the Tower bridge.  Tower couple selfie The boat dock. That's not our cruise boat. The Tower bridge is really impressive selfie on the boat Can't get enough Tower bridge boat goes under the Tower bridge The sun was very shiny Selfie with boat apparatus--possibly a tiny fan--and Tower bridge. The shard 'n stuff The walkie talkie building in the distance under another bridge. I have no idea which one.  The Globe Theater! If we ever go back, this is on our to-see list! a building backlit Big Ben After the cruise dropped us off by Big Ben, we still had some time to wander around, and I wanted to back to the National Galler...