Getting There - Aneel's Travelogue

We took the train from Glasgow to Edinburgh, which went smoothly. Getting the kids in their strollers to the hotel was a little trickier, since the best routes to this part of town involve lots of stairs. We found a way anyway.

Man, the Royal Mile of Edinburgh is touristy. I thought the center of Dublin was bad, but every space here that isn't the actual tourist attractions is filled with stores selling souvenirs. There are broad pedestrian avenues that are hard to get across because the buskers are so thick on the ground. And there are hordes of tourists like me, fumbling with guidebooks and trying to take snapshots.

I visited Edinburgh Castle. I should probably have given a little more time between Stirling Castle and Edinburgh Castle, since the histories are so similar. Edinburgh definitely has more history from the age of artillery, and it houses the Scottish crown jewels and the sword and scepter of state, which were interesting to see.

I stopped in at a few other tourist attractions, including The Cathedral of St Giles, which has some very pretty stained glass.

Then, after a heavy dinner, Tinny, Jarek, and I decided to climb to the highest point in Edinburgh, Arthur's Seat. Since we didn't have a lot of time before sunset, we decided to go up the grassy side of the hill, rather than following the longer path. I'm not sure we actually saved time, since some of it was hands-and-feet climbing. Above the grassy part are some nice cliff faces that look like they'd be fun to boulder on. It took a bit of scrambling, but I made it to the peak around sunset (hard to tell because of clouds near the horizon), and made it back down before full dark.