the trio in scotland, part III: Edinburgh, day 2

If you missed our first day in Edinburgh you can see it here: the trio in scotland, part II: Edinburgh, day 1

We slept in at our hostel (the lounge space is shown below - super cosy with big comfy couches and a fireplace), and then headed up to Edinburgh Castle.

It was frosty and had snowed a bit during the night.

The view from the castle is (almost) unbeatable. The only view that tops it is from Arthur's Seat, which we climbed/hiked/slid up later in our trip. You have a great view of New Town and Prince's Street as well as the water that comes in from the ocean.

We walked through the Scottish War Museum, a comprehensive collection of uniforms, war propaganda, medals and weapons that represent Scottish war history. At 1 p.m. we watched the cannon fire from the castle over the city (I'm sure they use blanks....) This happens every day, now as tradition but originally as a way to tell the ships on the water the accurate time.

We saw the Scottish Crown Jewels, in an interesting display that explained the history of the crown, sword and sceptor - as well as the Stone of Destiny (which used to sit under the crowning chair at Westminster Abbey and was originally the seat of Scottish Kings as they were crowned).

This is St. Margaret's chapel, the oldest part of the castle. It is one tiny white washed room with a small central alter, quite poignant.

The Great Hall was one of my favourite rooms. It is still used for diplomatic meetings today. I really loved the stained glass coat of arms covering every window in the r

This was the underground room where Prisoners of War were kept at the castle:

Outside the castle we stumbled into these giant pandas. While we were in the city, a giant panda couple from China arrived at the zoo, the first giant pandas to be in any UK zoo in 17 years.

After the castle we walked a block down the Royal Mile to the Scottish Whiskey Experience. The boys were very excited about this - they had pre-booked our tickets online weeks before. Our ticket got us a theme-park ride in a whiskey barrel through the distillery process, guided by the ghost of a former Scottish whiskey maker. After the ride we were led into a tasting room where we learned about the different kinds of single malt, sampled different regions' smells and chose which whiskey we would taste. I chose the Highland single-malt, a whiskey with vanilla and nutty flavours. Then the group was taken into a room holding the largest collection of whiskeys in the world, where we finally got to taste our samples of whiskey. It was a great way to learn about a vital component of Scottish life!

We ended our full day in the city by walking back down to Princes Street to buy me some mittens. I would not have lasted the trip without them...