I took friday off of work to go on a weekend adventure to SCOTLAND! It was the only trip outside of what was planned for us by CIS that I was going on. It was EXPENSIVE. The pound is not nice let me tell you!
Well the day started bright and early with a taxi to Dublin Airport at 4:30am... After a sleepless night because of last minute planning and just being unable to sleep. The flight was only 40 min long so very short! We were in and out of customs/security in no time. We arrived in Edinburgh and took a bus to city center and walked to our hostel. The hostel was nice and really centrally located but it was 22ish pounds a night for a shared room! We dropped our stuff then went out to go see the Edinburgh Castle. If you do this book ahead of time for your tickets!!! We did and we avoided the massive line of people and we were there only 15 min after opening.
This was the walk up to the main castle grounds.
Castle walls
The amazing view... The skyline here is so pretty and all the building are so nice looking.
Gun that they actually fire all days save sunday.
Rocking it out on the cannon!
This castle is old! 15th Century!
Stained glass from the cathedral.
Main hall with lots of swords! Most of them as big as me.
Key to the castle.
Royal Crest... Also fun fact the national animal of Scotland is the Unicorn! Very Magical!
Next on our tour was the prison cells. We in them and they seems pretty similar to the Irish Gaol I went to but the space was much smaller. These were for military discipline. Also here are Bri in pink and Sylvia two of the girls in my intern program that I traveled with!
A dark creepy stair well that we were not allowed to go down!
More city views because it was amazing from the walls of the castle!
Mtns!!
The streets were clean and all the buildings just amazingly pretty! This was on our way home from the castle. we had some lunch then checked in to our hostel then napped we were epicly sleepy. After our nap we walked around the city and got some dinner and drinks. The drinks we got at a bar called The Last drop. It was very reasonably priced and very fun!
Then at 10pm we went on the Double Dead Ghost Tour! We did first the South Bridge Vaults, it was so dark that I could not take any pictures. We walked though these vaults that had been underground but are no longer. The had been built to hold luxury goods but the stone was poraus so water is able to get in a flood them so they eventually became a location for crime and housed 100's of poor in each vault. They also had a reputation of body snatchers and of devil worshipers. All very fun to learn about and a MUST see! Net it was on to the Greyfriars graveyard and Covenanters Prison.
Covenanters Prison cell
The cell that I kept going back to for no reason and looking at. It felt like someone was watching me from this one the whole time I was in this sectioned off place. So back in the day ie mid 17th century there was unrest between the crown and presbyterian covenanters. This guy George Mackenzie figured that hanging these guys was not good enough so he put them in a locked area neat to the church so everyone could see then dieing of starvation and the elements. Basicly the first concentration camp. However the ghost stories don't start till some years ago the story goes that some kids broke into Mackenzie's vault and then opened his casket and took his head and then played football with it in the graveyard. They got caught by police but after that people visiting the location started reporting interactions with something. This has been called the Mackenzie poltergeist. It was so bad that the Government and the Church shut and locked the prison part of the graveyard. However now tours can go in at their own risk.
This is the edge of a death vault ie a place to lock up your loved ones before they are placed in their real graves so that they decompose enough to not be body snachted and sold for disection.
The inside of Mackenzie's mausoleum.
So the other interesting fact about this graveyard is that JK Rowling actually spent a lot of time in it while writing Harry Potter. The boys school in the background behind the area was what she used to make up Hogwarts. And Even better!!! The names of many characters are from headstones in the graveyard. So yes there is a Tom Riddle grave and several others from the books!
Well that was it for the first day! Be warned lots of pictures in the next post about the Highlands!
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