York to Edinburgh

Monday the 12th of June, we checked out of the lovely Quality Hotel York, and left our bags there while we headed out to see more of town. We stopped for a coffee outside of Cafe nero, and had some freshly made pastries from a little bakery next door. We sat on the concrete steps of a little sitting area across from the coffee shop and watched people go by as we enjoyed our breakfast. We next made our way to the spectacularly beautiful York Minster cathedral, paid our entry fees, and went inside to gawk at the insides of this enormous building. We went our own ways, and met up at the gift shop afterwards, then from there, walked towards the "Shambles" part of town where we each got a sandwich for a pound each, and a 7up, which we shared in a little park near a bunch of the little retail stands set up outside. With our tastey little sandwiches finished, we walked the rickety old streets and window-shopped. Vee finally found a clothing store that she absolutely fell in love with, and I kept busy looking into book stores, record stores, junk shops, etc. One of the shops was selling 3 books for 5 pounds, so I picked out a new book for Vee, and two for myself. We are both struggling somewhat with the big ones we are reading now, so these new books will be a bit of a relief for us. After a while, we walked back to the gardens near the cathedral and sat on the grass reading our new books, talking, having an ice cream, and a soda. I felt like I was catching a cold, so I mixed up some aspirin cold relief concoction with the soda and drank that. It was time to go see the big football match, USA versus the Czech Republic, and for that, we first went to the hotel to gather our bags, then marched over to a pub across from the train station and had a cheap pub meal too. Our food turned out to be the highlight of the night, because the US was AWFUL, and got the butts handed to them, 3-0. When the third goal was scored with maybe 8 minutes to play, we gathered our bags and went to the train station hoping to catch one of the earlier trains. The price for our two tickets from York to Edinburgh, which was to be about a 2 1/2 hour trip, just about knocked me out. For this one trip, we had to spend almost as much as we spent for our entire 7 day Flex pass in London...ouch!!! Anyway, turns out, the train we were trying to catch would be almost an hour and a half late, so we sat in the train station, read our books, and patiently waited, as the estimated time of arrival continued to slip, minute by minute. My nose was getting real stuffy, and I could feel the sicky aches start to set in. Eventually, the train showed up, we climbed aboard, and I started feeling sicker, so that by the time we arrived, I was cold, and shaky, and achy all over. Not to mention my back, which is totally messed up again. Vee, being awesome as always, and especially when my physcial condition renders me a useless old geezer, carried my daypack, while I just dragged my main pack behind me. Luckily, we hailed a cab pretty much immediately, as it was about 11pm already, and he took us right to the hotel. Although the guy at the front desk was friendly enough, he had no record of our room reservation, and was totally sold out. I took out our laptop computer and showed him our reservation confirmation, and he said he'd give us a room, and would just hope one of the other parties wouldn't show. And the cost for the room, at the rate I booked it, was less than a third of the standard rate, so that made the situation even more uncomfortable. Anyway, once up to our room, Vee stirred up another aspirin concoction for me, got me all bundled up warmly in bed, while my shakes eventually dissipated. We watched world cup highlights, and fell asleep. As for Edinburgh, from what we saw on the way to the hotel, it looked spectacular, one of the most beautiful cities we've seen, and we looked forward to getting out into it. And, despite the hotel mix-up, our room was wonderful, and it was exactly the comfort that what we needed at that moment.

Tuesday the 13th of June, the girls at the front desk of the hotel got our mix-up all taken care of and were very sweet about it. Once again, I pulled out the laptop to show them the PDF copy of our reservation from Bookings.net, and we were fine. We found a taxi just down the street from the hotel, and the driver seemed to be enjoying a lunch break parked along a little park-like setting. Since we were apparently out of the city center, and I wasn't sure how seen we'd encounter another one, I decided to get the drivers attention and see if he was available, and he was, as he wiped the crumbs away from his mouth and set down his paper-wrapped sandwich to say he'd be happy to take care of us. Once inside the taxi, he began what turned into a very nice long dialogue as he navigated our way down to the city center, explaining some of the city's highlights as we passed them. He dropped us off at the top of High Street since it was a pedestrian-only area, and we thanked him for the ride, and rolled ourselves over to the sidewalk to see about making a gameplan for the morning. I had identified a few hostels from our purple book that sounded good, and we started out to find ourselves some new accomodations. We walked to 3 different hostels, and all three, and their affiliated hostels were fully booked. The only thing they still had available were single beds in separate shared rooms, and we just weren't up for that. Finally, after a bit of frustration and friction, we made our way to an Internet cafe and booked a few nights at a hostel closeby that we found to be the cheapest available on Bookings.net. With our reservations made, we walked to the hostel to attempt an early check in, or at least drop off our bags. Well, they had no records of our reservations, and this turned into a whole new hullabaloo. Luckily, the nice young lady at the desk called in her manager, and they both worked on getting us taken care of, for the price that we were expecting, but instead of having a double room, we would have our own single rooms for the first night, and then a twin room for the remainder of our stay. Again, they were very friendly, and after some more thorough checking, they found our reservations through their online booking administration screen, and realized it was a problem with their system setup, and would work to resolve it. Anyway, we dropped off our big bags, and went out to see what Edinburgh was all about. Having nothing to eat or drink yet, we found a little pub and had a delicious lunch. Vee had a salmon sandwich with potatoes and salad, and I had a soup called Cullen Skink (smoked fish and potato cream) and another traditional plate of chicken breast with potatoes and some kind of brown mixed up something or other in a cream sauce with a side of mixed veggies, all of which was delicious. During our meal, I called a tour company, and booked a two-day weekend trip up to Inverness and back, which we are really excited about. With full bellies, we walked in and out of alot of shops on High Street, and eventually made our way up to the castle. We shared an audio tour, and went inside of virtually every building inside the castle walls. We saw the war prisoner rooms, the crown jewels, the well, the Queens quarters from the outside, the soldiers memorial, David's Tower, and the many canons. Outside the castle, we contined back down the Royal Mile (High Street) and popped inside a scottish kilt factory mill and museum. From there, we walked over to Princes Street and admired the starkly impressive Walter Scott memorial, and took some pictures outside the visitors center. In need of a coffee, we tried to get into the Costa Cafe, but it was closed, so we found a Cafe Nero, and relaxed there with some coffee drinks. Brazil was playing, so we needed to get to a pub and watch. The first one we went to was crammed full, and most were locals, and we couldn't get in view of a tv, so we left before ordering anything, and found another one closer to the hostel where we got comfortable around the bar, and watched the game there instead. Afterwards, back to our separate rooms at the hostel for an attempt at some sleep.

Wednesday June 14th, we checked out of our separate rooms, and left our bags in the locker room. We found a little cafe called the Bean and Grape where we had a bit of breakfast, talked, read, and made plans for the rest of our time in Edinburgh. We stopped inside Tron Kirk, which is an old church with a good bit of historical significance, and read a bunch of material on various tourist attractions in the area. After reading about one particular tour, the City of the Dead, we decided that although this city is loaded with supposedly paranormal activity and entities, we would not be partaking in this one, and maybe not any of them. The City of the Dead tour looked absolutely terrifying, with pages and pages posted of people's accounts and photos and newspaper clippings of people being physically attacked by the ghosts and poltergeists on this tour...NO THANKS!!! The one most active ghoul was at Grey Friars cemetary: the McKenzie poltergeist. YIKES!!! What a horrible story, and we certainly didn't want any poltergeists following us back to Philly. With that decided, we did find a few other things of interest, one being Roslyn Chapel, which I think we'll do on Friday. I think it plays a part in the Da Vinci Code story. Anyway, since it was right close by, we visited the St.Giles Cathedral and sat through their 15 minute noon church service, and then wandered around the sanctuary for a while before continuing on down the Royal Mile to the Palace. We paid up, and with our audio tour handpieces, toured the entire building and grounds. I think the most impressive part was the beautiful gardens in the back, as well as the temple ruins next to the palace. We took a bunch of pictures, and admired the beautiful flowers, trees, lawns, and brigh blue early afternoon sky. Then, outside we began what would be a full afternoon hike up the "craggies" (?) for amazing 360 degree views of the city, the water, and everything else within who knows how far. The wind was blustery, but not bad, and the views were amazing. Then, we hiked back down, and eventually back up High Street, to the hostel where we checked into our new rooms, dropped off our bags, and headed out for a chinese food buffet dinner. After a delicious gorge-fest, we stopped into a nice bookstore and picked up a few things, and went back to the hostel. We both read, for a while, and went downstairs to see what was going on with the Germany-Poland match, and got to see the end of it when Germany finally scored in the extension. That about wraps it up for the day.