Craigmillar Castle

Today we hopped on the bus for half an hour and took a visit to Craigmillar Castle. The castle in its original form was built in the 14th century, and up until the 1700s had major additions and changes. It was abandoned in the 1700s and now stands as a surprisingly big castle with an hours worth of rooms to explore and run around in.

The day started off clear, bright, crisp, and very cold. And then it turned into cloudy and cold. It feels like winter already!

This is a wonderful doorway!

The coat of arms on the top is of a unicorn and two lions.
Really I think everyone should have their own coat of arms. Mine perhaps would be a hedgehog and a piece of cheese.

It's amazing to think that people once lived here.

Queen of Scots stayed at Craigmillar a few times! Though once you visit a few castles though you realize that nearly all of the surviving castles had housed royalty at one point or another.

Huge fireplaces!

No idea what I was doing here, I just like the picture.

Am I the only one who thinks old latrines are fascinating?

Ya, I thought as much.

This is the inside of a dovecot:

It's where they kept the pigeons. Nope, not as pets, but as food.

So that was Craigmillar Castle! Where to next?

The Pope drove by ...

Guess who I saw today? And no, I won't be directly talking about religion. This post was originally verbose, but sometime between writing it and typing this I've become moody and the phrase "who cares" and "why would anyone want to read about my musings about secret service" popped into my mind. So instead, here's some pictures and a bit of text.

Today is St. Ninian's Day (Scotland's first saint). A parade was planned, and the pope had a scheduled appearance.

The atmosphere was very similar to the queen's silver jubilee a few years ago. There were people selling souvenirs, police everywhere, and mini flags being handed out. Except this time the souvenirs didn't have the queen on them and the flag being waved was the Scottish flag.

The St. Ninian's Parade was very Scottish. Tons of bagpipes, a primary school child dressed up as what I'm assuming was supposed to be the pope (wish I had taken a picture of that), drums, kilts, kids from local catholic schools yelling "Hurrah for Scotland!", and people dressed up as famous Scotsmen. Even I, a visitor, felt patriotic.

45 minutes later I could see bright police motorcycles in the distance. Behind the motorcycles were two trucks, one of which had a large, menacing camera on top recording the crowd. I could see, just a few feet behind the truck, security men with large earpieces, jogging and looking tensely alert. Suddenly the pope's vehicle came into view from behind the truck. Torn between just looking and looking through the eye of the camera I managed to take a picture.
And now I have my privately sponsored flag as a souvenir

New Lanark

J is taking a week's vacation so we've decided to take a few little day trips around Edinburgh.

Yesterday we went to New Lanark.

New Lanark has a fascinating history. It started off as a cotton mill in the late 1700s. In the early 19th century Robert Owen purchased it. Owen was a firm believer in education and social reform. Later in life he actually went to America and tried to set up a Utopian town, which failed miserably (surprise!). As owner of the mill he set up an infancy school, lengthened the time the children stayed in school (the teachers were not allowed to punish the children), set up one of the first co-operative stores, and put into practice a crazy amount of other socialist ideas.

In 1968 the mill was shut down, but it's since been renovated and is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It has a strange little informative ride (like Haunted Mansion in Disneyland, but with yarn), a working Spinning Mule and several rooms that you can go into which show what life was like back then.

Onto the pictures.

At the train station

On the train.


Oh no! The other passengers are turning into beach balls!


We've arrived!

The weird ride.


Makin' a fool of myself

The Cora Linn Falls

Mechanic doing a bit of work on the spinning mule

And, the yarn I bought!!

Day in Linlithgow aka long pointy sticks day

Today we went to Linlithgow Palace to see a jousting tournament.

No, not a real one!

It's something they apparently do each summer, kind of a fun for the whole family thing.

We showed up right in time for a falconry show. Sadly it was so windy that it was hard to hear what the falconer was saying, and the poor birds were swooping around all crazy like.


After that was the jousting show.


Even though it was all staged the jousting sticks (they must have a name) must have actually been sharp because there was often bits of wood flying around them.
I was also amused that one of the jousters looked like a family friend (who just happens to be English).


And then there was a mini recreation of a fight between the Scottish and English. There was a lot of fake insults being thrown between the "rivals." At one point someone yelled "Go Scotland" a little too seriously...


Then on to the actual palace. It was largely built in the 1400s, and was the birthplace to James V and Mary, Queen of Scots.






And of course here's the requisite embarrassing photo of the day: