Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Saturday, May 4th: Castles, Exploring, Elephants, Oh My!


Gardens at Holyrood Palace


Today, after a very luxurious sleeping in after our long day, we met in the hotel lobby to walk down to the train station to validate our tickets for our future train ride from Edinburgh to London. After we had taken care of that, we walked back to the hotel to put away valuable documents, and then walked back down to get onto a sightseeing bus. Many of us chose to sit on top of the bus, as it provided an excellent view of the city and its many old buildings, despite the cold and wind that is so common in this area. One of the most exciting sites to see on this tour was Edinburgh Castle, which we will get to explore tomorrow. 


We decided to get off the bus at the Palace of Holyroodhouse, which is Queen Elizabeth II's official residence in Scotland. The Queen usually comes and spends a week here each summer, to carry out official business, such as entertaining important guests, and holding court in Scotland.  The Palace's grounds and gardens are extensive and quite pretty, while its inside rooms are extremely historical, with various pantings of past Scottish and British royalty (such as Macbeth), and many different relics from Mary, Queen of Scot's reign. (Sadly, no pictures were allowed inside the actual Palace).

After we had all finished exploring the Palace's rooms and grounds, we were allowed to visit the adjoining Queen's Gallery, which featured many photos from King Edward VII (then Prince of Wales) photographs from his tour of the Middle East. These photos were extremely important at the time, as photography was just becoming popular, and Queen Victoria, King Edward's mother, wanted him to be educated on his future Kingdom. As the Middle East was a considered a very important trade route for Britain, she sent him to explore the Middle East, with a photographer and an artist. These photos allowed many people back in Britain to see the famous Pyramids of Egypt, the many temples of Jerusalem and Turkey, and the ancient destroyed buildings of Greece. There were also some pieces of actual Egyptian hieroglyphs and some Rhodesian and Egyptian jewelry and pottery that King Edward was given by the local peoples.





















We then hopped back onto the bus to head back to the hotel. After a wee bit of discussion, we all decided to break off into smaller groups to go to dinner and explore Edinburgh. Some decided to walk the Royal Mile, which has the Palace of Holyroodhouse at one end and the Edinburgh Castle at the other and is lined with various shops and restaurants. Some decided to head back to the famous Elephant House Cafe (which we had seen earlier in our walk to the bus) which  is considered the Birthplace of Harry Potter, as J.K. Rowling wrote out her ideas for the famous book series there. Then we all headed back to the hotel to prepare to explore Edinburgh Castle in the morning.

                                                                    Top sites (Click for More Info!):
                                                              1. Palace of Holyroodhouse
                                                              2. Elephant House Cafe

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