ENGAGED in Edinburgh!

So...... the details....... (as requested!!!!)

Simon had been incredibly romantic and flown around the world to come and visit me on my three months away (originally planned as a surprise but he was worried about me getting angry, so told me mid-Germany), the poor thing had flown from Melbourne to Seoul, had an overnight stay and brewery dinner with his Dad, Pierre, then flown to Heathrow and waited three hours for an overnight bus to Edinburgh, arriving early Saturday morning, but had to wait to see me until Sunday night when I arrived back from the Haggis tour! To say he was tired on arrival was an understatement.

He waved frantically as Haggis busses pulled into Edinburgh, only to realise there were more than one and he was getting strange looks after the first two! I gave him such a huge hug when I got off the bus and found him shaking like a leaf - very cute! He waited for me to say goodbye to everyone on the tour and took me to our lovely accommodation right off the Royal Mile, told me to sit down and said his pre-rehearsed proposal speech (400 times apparently!), got down on one knee and showed me the gorgeous heirloom ring.

Incredibly romantic and such Simon style!

Of course I said yes, well actually, I said 'of course' and then I waited for him to calm down and stop shaking (at least now I knew why!), and we went down for a drink with some of those from the tour (barely containing our excitement!).

The next day we explored Edinburgh, did some groceries for making superb lunches, had a nice lunch with Sibel before she headed off for London and then hiked part of the way up Arthurs Seat for a pretty incredible view of Edinburgh - blue skies and a clear view meant that everyone and their dog was out hiking Arthurs Seat, there was such a line up to the top that we decided a detour off the half way mark was a good idea!

View of Parliament and Holyrood House from the mini Arthurs Seat 

There were an awful lot of people on the zig zag path in the middle there - I love how natural the Arthurs Seat area has been kept, gravel paths only the entire way and no signs at all! 

We still got a pretty reasonable view from our vantage point!

Today we woke up very early and decided to catch the sunrise on the Edinburgh skyline - we were glad we did. The city was deserted and although it was a little nippy, the sun was beginning to shine - it was a promise of the beautiful weather we would have for the rest of the day. We walked across to Princes St Gardens and watched the sun rise through the clouds and then took the stairs up to Calton Hill to sit on the monument nicknamed 'Edinburgh's Disgrace' as they only ever built 1/4 of what was originally planned before running out of money.

In the forecourt of Hollyrood House

After heading back to the apartment, having a yummy breakfast of toasted bagels, sauteed mushrooms, smoked salmon and cheesy scrambled eggs (sorry about the detail, but it was so good, its a new fav of ours I think!) and doing domestic things like washing (yay for the apartment having a washer/dryer and not having to handwash my clothes in hostel sinks!), we walked out to Hollyrood Palace. Hollyrood is a 'working palace' (as our audio guide told us repeatedly and rather bullishly!), with many state functions still carried out here; in addition to being the Queen's residence for part of every year. No photos were allowed inside, here's a link to some online, but we got a few outside the front!

We decided to treat ourselves to a nice dinner to celebrate the happenings of the week, it was pretty scrumptious and got ready to leave what will be a favourite place of ours forever.

Princes St Gardens in the sunlight! (Edinburgh Castle in the background)

The next morning we checked out and spent a few hours doing some last tourist shopping and relaxing in Prices St Gardens, soaking up the sun before making our way to the airport.

Scotland - Edinburgh and Haggis tour - pre-engagement!!!

Jess and I dropped mum off at the airport and returned the rental car and argued for our discounts - beware Irish car rental companies, their bills don't add up and they'll sting you at any chance! all the travel review websites on the subject are right.

Anyhow, we spent most of the day in the airport waiting for our flight, which was delayed, but we made it to Edinburgh and caught the nice quick airlink bus into the city (the strange guy chatting to us notwithstanding)!

First impressions of Edinburgh; thank goodness I don't have to drive through it in a rental car(!); Jess says it's like a smaller, more relaxed version of London; with grey, soot covered buildings; little hills that the city traverses up, down and around everywhere; and so many little alleyways off main streets, with interesting little nook and crannies - I am really enjoying exploring and it will be a great place for Simon and I to have a few days to unwind.

After we'd checked in, been ribbed by the Aussies behind the desk of the hostel and wandered around the city for a little bit (nice view of the city from the nearby Dublin castle!), we had an early dinner and spent the rest of the night talking to the lovely Kerryn, an American with an English accent after living in London for four years.

Day two in Edinburgh was our walking day, we wandered around the pretty Princes gardens

Rolling hills of daffodils!

Princes St Gardens overlooking the new city

All of the chairs are dedicated, with little plaques detailing their message 

Gorgeous flowers everywhere!

 and Jess and I explored the beautiful city of Edinburgh, taking in a free tour the hostel put on (run by a Canadian guy who took great amusement from mocking the Scottish!). The tour was full of awesome little historical stories, like that of the statue of little Bobby. Reputedly one of the most photographed landmarks in Edinburgh, the statue of the dog, little Bobby, commemorates a 'wee dog' who never left his master's side. 

To paraphrase the story, his master was the warden of Greyfriar's graveyard, a church who had to employ security to stop grave-robbers entering, and once the warden died, he was buried in Greyfriar's as an exemption to their usually strict 'entrance' requirements to recognise his contribution. Little Bobby never left his master's grave, and when kicked out of Greyfriar's every night by the new warden, he would always find a way back in - no matter how many holes they filled, fences they built, or extended; little Bobby would be patiently resting next to his master's graveside for the rest of his long life. When the little dog finally passed away, the city chose to commemorate him by erecting a statue in his likeness near Greyfriars, so that he could always be by his master's side. So the story goes anyhow!

Edinburgh has a lot of pubs - all selling pretty great food, locally brewed and stored ales (beer from a cask - Simon tells me its banned in Australia - tastes different!), whisky (of course - they are the kings of whisky over here!) and it seems like every pub has a story that goes with its naming. For instance, there is Maggie Dickinsons' - the lady who evaded death by hanging (for adultery and having a child out of wedlock) by being so overweight that the noose only knocked her out rather than snapping her neck, with the sight of her sitting up in the undertaker's cart enough to strike fear into all of the superstitious Scots who saw her; she spent the rest of her days working at the pub that now bears her name, consoling all those about to be executed as they drank their final whisky. So many stories! 

(Public warning: Nasty details and gory stories replicated below! For those with a sensitive stomach, don't read immediately after eating...)

Another that stuck out for me was Princes St Gardens, which is now an incredibly lush, green rolling valley containing fields of daffodils (that brought an involuntary 'wow' to jess' lips, see above for amazing-ness!), gorgeous old trees and picturesque little flower arrangements. It was previously Nor Loch (a lake) where the waste of Edinburgh drained to, and its the sort of waste that they collected in the bathroom during the day and threw out of the window once the bell struck at 10pm. For a city which was, for its time, reasonably densely populated, the stench from this draining waste was enough to give Edinburgh the nickname old stinker (or something similar once translated!). The city drained the lake in the 1820's (such history!) and it was when it was removing one mighty stinking layer of sludge (ew!), that they found the bodies of over 300 people. The bodies were those who had perished after being accused of witchcraft; with the test of whether you were a witch or not being to tie your hands to your feet and throw you off Edinburgh castle into the stinking Loch below. Once you bounced off the rocks a few times on your way down, if you managed to somehow stay alive, you were deemed a witch (as 'obviously' the devil's hand was at play if you were managing to stay alive), and if you drowned, your name was cleared. Horrific! Even more nasty was the torture techniques used against those who did manage to float - one wife's limbs were stretched to the state of irreperable damage and agony and she was hung in this state over her husband who was being slowly killed by the addition of a weight, every half and hour onto his body until his ribs gave in and were crushed. Truly barbaric - the extent of truth to the stories who knows, but I heard similar from our bus tour guide, so it seems to be the consensus.

We also went up to Calton Hill, with nice views of the city and the 'National Disgrace' monument.

Monument of National Disgrace (they run out of money to finish it!)

Nice view, with a lonely park bench!

We met Sibel, a PEGS friend who came up from York for the Haggis tour, for dinner and worked out where we had to go in the morning to depart on our Haggis tour!

Our Haggis tour wasn't too big, around 30 people or so in a midibus, with two guides. Leo was our skilled bus driver, strict on talking when we should have been listening to his reverential tales, incredibly knowledgeable and great at making up the details as he chose! His cras humour was an amusing mix with his harry potter-esque glasses!

I'm bad at remembering details of our trip and I didn't take too many photos on the way, but our first day was up through Stirling and listening to stories of Scottish history, to Glencoe, a snack at a 'pit stop' famous for its 'heelan coo' (scottish for highland cow - they are just gorgeous - they have Cousin IT hair over their eyes, google them!), Hamish; Fort William for a whisky distillery tour (with a deadpan humour distill-er who was telling people off left right and centre!), through incredible scenery of the Great Glen and pulling up next to Loch Ness for a night in Fort Augustus.

Stunning!

One of the old castles on the way

We went on a 'Nessy' boat cruise on Loch Ness (pretty chilly!), it is a beautiful lake and is huuuuuge, the depths are just incredible, hundreds of metres in places - you may as well be in the ocean! The eccentric cap-i-tan showed us his IP protected 'sonar system' for seeking out the huge creatures, and let us have a glimpse of his mobile phone pictures, 'evidence', of the huge creatures, which showed up on his sonar at up to 13 tonne or something absolutely incredible. He even mentioned the 'evidence' he had MIT examining 'at the moment' - it is always hard to know just how much to believe with the 'scientific proof' you are shown (oooh, quotation marks sound so cynical!) - who knows, he might actually be right. In such an incredibly large lake, I could believe that there could have evolved a number of incredibly large and almost whale-like creatures - the mystery of Nessy lives on!

We went back to the hostel for a huge dinner and some trivia and drinks in the bar. We'd met some pretty cool people thus far on the tour, there were quite a few internationals working in London - Alesha a Sydney girl, Angela and Joseph who were Canadian flatmates and Andrew and Kelly, the New Zealanders.

On the second day we headed out to the Isle of Skye for some more spectacular scenery, an amazing hike up a mountain to see the old Man of Storr,

A-ma-zing.....

a walk around a cute little beach town,

dunking our heads in a cold stream to commemorate an old Faerie story and back to Fort Augustus for a 'Scottish highland' show by a descendent of the MacDonald clan, who showed us (with poor volunteers!) how to fold up and dress in a kilt and many stories of what life was like back then.

the little lambs were so cute!

The third day we tried a Scottish hakka to entice Nessie from the Loch and headed back along the way to Edinburgh, stopping to look at Culloden Moor, one of the most brutal battle sights between the Scottish and the English. It was a great tour, with a good bunch of friendly people and the Scottish scenery was just spectacular!

A castle that was quite protected by its historical society who really wanted everyone to pay 11 pounds entry and built big fences to stop any photos!

The sign next to a rock on a string - Scottish humour!

Ireland part two!

Killarney National Park

We set off from Killarney (and some interesting antics with paper feeds into the eftpos machine and forgetful keys) to find a nice walk to do in Killarney National Park. 


We walked past Muckross House, the country home of Jess' future husband, where she will receive you for non fat tea and scones (made with lemonade), and walked onto torc waterfall, which unlike other dam spillways labelled as waterfalls in Ireland, was actually a pretty decent waterfall. 

On the walk to the Waterfall, Muckross house in the background

Torc Waterfall, Mum and I

We drove around the coast, with a few pretty views along the way and a lot of cute little towns, but it took forever! The drive was pretty slow and although the scenery was nice and the towns cute, it wasn't worth the three hour detour and consequent headache of such crazy one way streets, 100km/hr roads that you don't get out of second, or if you are lucky, third gear on!

By the time we reached Cork, we headed straight for the much acclaimed English Market (note, lonely planet fail on this one), which was nice but not huge. Jess was happy, as she found, not her future husband unfortunately, but barleygrass (a close second apparently); which is the infamous ingredient in our Flemington gym's 'green drink'. The market was housed in a cool warehouse and we liked one of their interesting bread shops! We also picked up an interesting slice for breakfast for the next morning and stopped for coffee in the upstairs area overlooking it all.


We checked into our accommodation, argued that we didn't want to be charged in US dollars without first being asked (but it's the same thing? Um, no, not when (1) you are Australian and (2) your card only has euros on it and (3) you pressed signature verified before I've even signed it and now you're going to have to void the entire transaction and hope you haven't been charged for it - I think we were in a perfect mood to be annoyed by that guy!) and walked back down to cork city centre for dinner. Cork is a nice place, the main shopping street was packed full of after work shoppers and their university area is huge.


The next day we set off to visit Blarney castle, and even though we didn't kiss the stone, the castle and it's gardens were beautiful.

Where you kiss the Blarney stone - the darker grey, years of saliva buildup, shadow at the bottom there!

We drove from Blarney up to Kilkenny and stopped in a few cute towns along the way, like Cashel, which was quaint and their cafe's veggie soup pretty decent.

Rock of Cashel - undergoing renovations

After finding our hotel in the outskirts of Kilkenny (an amazing Internet rate though, 78 euros for the three of us including a full breakfast), we headed back into the town for dinner. Kilkenny Castle contains a brilliant (with a capital B) park area that is utilised by the entire town; it was teeming with groups of teenagers kicking soccer balls around, families keeping littlies amused, others running around the park's circuit and tourists strolling through, cameras at the ready!

Swans!

From Kilkenny we drove through the Wicklow Park area and stopped at Glendalough's lakes for some spectacular scenery, relaxing walks to a little waterfall and around the lower lake and a picturesque picnic by the upper lake. Definitely on the 'come back here again' list.

The picturesque Glendalough lakes

Picnic by the lake!

University square

With a few stops along the way, we headed up to our accommodation just out of Dublin and crashed for the night. The next day, having worked out our transport options, we hopped on a double decker bus into the city (sitting at the front of a double decker, going quite fast and stopping on the behind of another car is quite disturbing at first!).
Dublin isn't an incredibly aesthetic city, as far as European cities go, everything is pretty bleak and grey and there aren't too many tourist attractions. We spent the day walking around, and covered off all of the sites of the hop on hop off tourist bus'! We started at the University, where Jess had a look in at the Book of Kells, wandered around to the Cathedrals, 

had lunch in a nice park along the way and took in other city sights before venturing up to the Guinness Storehouse (where you almost choke on the smell of fermenting sugars and yeast within a two block radius!). We didn't really fancy the tourist tour, but just went into the shop and bought a few prezzies. After that we wandered up to one of the museums, had a look around, decided that the old silver coin collection didn't really grab our attention and headed back towards the bus stop. Over an early dinner we decided we couldn't leave Ireland without sampling a pot of Guinness, so shared one with our irish stews!


The next morning we said goodbye to Mum as she flew back to Thailand and Jess and I continued to Scotland!




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Location:South and east Ireland