Bring Me a Shrubbery!

Another sweet day. Arguably the best so far of the trip. After a 2 1/2 hour drive to Edinburgh, we toured the MASSIVE Edinburgh Castle--home to a rich history of historificalicious Scottish characters including Robert Earl of Bruce (of Braveheart fame) and Mary Queen of Scots. From a size/scale perspective, this is right up there with the Tower of London as one fo the coolest, awe-inspiring places I've visited in Europe.

It sits on a HUGE outcropping of eons-old volcanic rock, as shown below:



Looking up at this thing, I could imagine how wet-your-pants intimidating it must have looked to the invading English.



The view from the castle over the city and North Sea was equally cool:




the castle itself was incredibly interesting. Similar to the Tower of London, it did a fantastic job of trying to portray what life was like in the castle during "ye olden times". I'm certain they couldn't actually replicate the smell of the period, but the displays and 'living dioramas' in the prison area, regiment garrison, great halls, cathedral, chapels were all superbly put together.

In walking through their displays and dedicatory shrines to soldiers past, I really enjoyed reading of the history of our Revolutionary War from their perspective. Found out that quite a few American "POW's" from the revolutionary war were housed there alongside their compatriots of the period from Holland, France, and Denmark.

And I even loved the name of the "pub" up in the castle:



"Red Coat" Cafe. Ha. Takes me back to my Johnny Tremain-reading days.


After finishing up in Edinburgh, we leadfooted it out of town to reach Doune Castle before it closed. Doune Castle, you say? Everyone who recalls Bring Me a Shrubbery! The Knights of Niiii, or tossing a cow over the wall knows the significance of this place--one fo the most recognized sets from The Classic..... Monty Python & the Holy Grail.



And I have to say--this visit kicked all sorts of arse! It really made my trip...

We got there just as they were about to shut the doors for the day. As we just made it in, we actually had the run of the castle to ourselves--three of us able to fully check this place out, sans crowds, screaming babies, or anything else. The castle is one of the coolest castles I've been through--it is kinda hard not to become 14 again when exploring the place, easily imagining how cool it would be to live in a place such as this. Unlike most other "guided" or restored castes I've been through, this one was virtually all open for exploration, with only a very small section roped off.

I could actually go all the way up to the roof, and from there, the views, late in the day at dusk, were pretty stunning. Don't tell the wife, but I actually took advantage of the solitude to skirt around the barriers and climb up to the highest points of the roof, where only knee to waist high ramparts separated me from the green grounds a couple hundred feet below. The views tell it all!









This coolest pic ended our 40 minutes there, and made the 3 hour drive back to Balazs's apartment in the dark (and snow) totally worth it....






Tomorrow its our wind-down-get-ready-to-go-home-day. We may spend our last bit of time this week back up in Aberdeen, hanging out with other friends from work who have just arrived for their HUET training course.

Aaron