A Trip to the UK - Edinburgh

From London, Alison and I took a train to Edinburgh for a 2 day stay. Here are some of the things that we did in Edinburgh:

We went in St. Giles' Cathedral.

We visited the National Museum of Scotland and saw the sister of the guillotine, The Maiden. A guillotine has a slanted blade and was more effective, whereas The Maiden has a straight blade and not so effective.

We explored the streets and alleyways which were filled with character.

This is called the Mercat Cross. Royal proclamations have been read here since the 14th century.

We also tried Haggis which, to our surprise, was our favorite dish we had in the UK.

Here is a police box.

Our favorite sight in Edinburgh was the Edinburgh Castle which is an 11th-century fort and royal residence complete with crown jewels.





Here is the Great Hall in the castle, very bright.

The castle had the most amazing views.

We also visited the royal yacht, Britannia. Britannia was used by the royal family for 40 years and was retired in 1997. It made for an interesting tour.

For more about our trip to the UK:
Click here for the post on London
Click here for the post on Bath

It turned out to be a truly amazing trip :)

A Trip to the UK - London

From Bath, Alison and I took a bus to London for a 3 day sight seeing frenzy. Here is what we saw:

Day 1

The first thing we did was tour St. Paul's Cathedral. For all those Mary Poppins fans out there, these were the steps used to film the "Feed the Birds" part in the Mary Poppins movie. The old lady sold her seeds here.

We climbed to the very top of St. Paul's big dome and this was our view.

Here is St. Paul's Dome in the distance. Our hostel was right next to St. Paul's, so we could always find our way back to our hostel. What a great landmark.

That night we saw the Phantom of the Opera, and it was amazing.

Day 2

The next day we hopped on a double decker tour bus which took us all around the city. We hopped off at Buckingham Palace just in time to catch the changing of the guards which turned out to be pretty boring, so left before it was over.

We then went to the Churchill Museum which definitely made up for the changing of the guards.

After the museum, we took a river cruise down the Thames River.

Here is the new London Bridge.

Tower Bridge

That night we saw "As You Like It" at the Globe Theater.

Day 3

We started off the day by going back to the Globe Theater for a tour.

After the tour, we visited the Tower of London.

Behind me is where the crown jewels are kept at the Tower of London

This is Traitor's Gate - prisoners came to the Tower of London through these gates.

The next stop was Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament.

Then we headed to Westminster Abby which was huge.


We finished the night by having dinner at the famous mall Harrods and visiting the Victoria and Albert Museum. We were just too tired at this point, so there are no pictures.