Europe 2019 - Edinburgh

 Now that we are all sequestered at home because of the coronavirus, I realized I never wrote up our Europe trip from last summer, 2019.  And now I have time to do that!  So I will do a post for each place, since there's a lot to share, including photos.

Griffin and I headed out in mid-July to visit Edinburgh, Paris, and London in two and a half weeks.  Our first stop was technically Amsterdam, as we changed planes to Edinburgh.  Griffin was thrilled about this, as he has been studying Dutch using Duolingo, a language app on his phone.  He also has Dutch heritage through Doug's family and wants to visit the Netherlands someday, beyond Schiphol airport!  He had a lot of fun trying to read signs in the airport as we hurried to make our flight.  We made it with a few minutes to spare.

Griffin in the Amsterdam airport wearing his SC Heerenveen jersey (Dutch football team)

Once we arrived in Edinburgh, we had some time before we could move into our AirBnb, so we put our suitcases in lockers at the bus station (which took us a while to find, since there was a lot of construction).  We wandered around Princes Street, which is a main shopping street, bought new SIM cards for our phones so we could use them without it costing a fortune (5GB for £15 each, not bad!), and found a bookstore (of course).

Edinburgh Castle from below

Agatha Christie is still popular!

Our AirBnb was an apartment just a few minutes by bus or taxi outside of the downtown area, a cute place where the bedroom Griffin used was almost exactly the same size as the bed in it.  I wish I had a photo.  We learned how to use the bus system well, and had fun being on the top of the double decker buses.

We visited Edinburgh Castle, walked down the Royal Mile, St. Giles Cathedral, Victoria Street, visited some Harry Potter inspirations (J.K. Rowling wrote the first book in Edinburgh), and saw how people lived in the 17th century in tight, dark, miserable quarters in a place called Mary King's Close.  Then we took a bus to the Royal Yacht Britannia and took a tour of this HUGE ship!

The Royal Mile

I loved all the little alleys and walkways

St. Giles Cathedral - we heard the organist rehearsing and it was magnificent!

Victoria Street

We visited a cemetery with some familiar names, this one is for "Thomas Riddle" and there was another for a McGonagall 

Edinburgh Castle front

View from Edinburgh Castle - down to Princes Street


I learned that the national animal of Scotland is the unicorn!

Inside Edinburgh Castle, right before we visited the Scottish Honours or the Crown Jewels and the Stone of Destiny

Of course we visited the National Library of Scotland

Royal Yacht Britannica

Living room in the Royal Yacht Britannica (probably bigger than our whole house!)

Royal Yacht and Griffin

Dolly the Sheep in the National Museum of Scotland

After four days of exploring, we took a train from Edinburgh to London, with beautiful views along the coast.

Edinburgh train station - I just love seeing all the places the trains are going

Tea cart on the train - I love tea so being in the UK is perfect!

View from the train between Edinburgh and London