York & Edinburgh

After the NDPA Seminar in Manchester, the Walkers and we headed for York by train.  This amazing photo of the famous York Cathedral was shot from our hotel room in York.  Had we have known that its doors closed at 5 p.m. that day, we would have headed there first!

We passed by the birthplace of the rebel, Guy Fawkes.  Ouch!

To state that something is a "shambles" comes from this centuries' old famous street,

The Shambles, which was once littered with animal parts!

This large dog captured everyone's attention!

Beautiful, old churches never failed to catch our eye! 

We're not sure which we liked better, the telephone booths or the mailboxes!

 Famous landmark, Clifford's Tower, is all that remains of the old York Castle built in the 13th century and once the center of government for the north of England.


Prior to its existence, about 150 Jews committed mass suicide there
in 1190 rather than fall into the hands of their persecutors.

Walking along the bank of the Ouse River was enjoyable as we loved the old buildings.


 

We said goodbye to the York skyline in the morning and boarded the train for Edinburgh.

Awesome aquaduct!  I wondered how old it was!

And an impressive country estate! Downton Abbey, anyone?

This is the first thing we saw as we exited the main train station in Edinburgh.
 

The architecture in downtown Edinburgh was certainly impressive.


From the train station it was a short walk up Calton Hill, a favorite "natural wonder" and public park. It was formed by volcanic activity and then gouged by glaciers during the Ice Age.

From the hilltop, you had a great view of Edinburgh Castle.

And a view of the coastline as well!

They were actually filming a WWII movie about Churchill, so that was fun to watch!

We were anxious to walk the famous Royal Mile.  

It is called that because the Edinburgh Castle sits at the top...

 ...and the Holyrood Palace is at the bottom.

The Palace is the official residence in Scotland of Her Majesty The Queen.

 




Beyond the castle was a famous hill our tour guide pointed out.  People could be seen hiking along the pathway to the top, but we missed the bit about why it is important! duh!


 Since Edinburgh residents are known to be able to count sunny days on two hands,
we felt very, very lucky to have been there on two great summery days!

From our hotel we entered the Royal Mile at about the half-way point and headed towards the castle.

The narrow "mile" was full of tourists headed in both directions.




Since we had recently toured some castles, we opted not to take the tour inside.
Still, it was worth the walk just getting to the top.

Heading DOWN the Royal Mile we struggled to wend our way through the crowd.

Mid-way down the mile was a beautiful church, St. Giles' Cathedral, dating from the 14th century.

We enjoyed "window shopping" our way along the mile, 

purchasing a few Christmas ornaments and chocolate along the way.

The World's End Pub was a perfect spot to enjoy a fish & chips dinner!

One detour we took was to a cemetery where we discovered a famous "resident," Adam Smith, the Scottish philosopher and "pioneer of political economy" who had died in 1790.

Then later on we ran onto his statue downtown.

And then a statue of yet another Scottish economist, Hume, a contemporary of Smith.

Our bus tour passed by this interesting monument a few times,


so we were glad to get a closer view and see the statues in and around it.

It is a Victorian Gothic monument to Scottish author, Sir Walter Scott, whose statue is inside.

We did see a few homes from our On/Off City Bus Tour.

And we just loved the unique black cabbies!

We managed to hail one for our ride back to the airport.

I don't know why these two are all smiles!  Maybe it's because
we just completed a fabulous 5-day visit of beautiful Britain and Scotland!