In the eyes of Kings 7/23

We woke up feeling pretty refreshed this morning after sleeping in a little while. We had one thing on the agenda and that was to see the Edinburgh Castle. It certainly is the center of the city, sitting on a cliff that pretty much overlooks the entire city and the ocean. It is absolutely stunning for many reasons, but our favorite was because it reminded us of a Dragon defending castle. It has a green valley around the castle that starts to build on steep rocks that are also covered in green. This goes up from there to sheer tall walls and battlements. The only word that comes to mind is straight up Medieval!

We walked what they call “The Royal Mile” to get to the entrance of the castle. This is exactly what it sounds like. It’s about a mile long and has all sorts of shops, and pubs, and street performers, with banners hanging from building to building above us. It is a very epic way to enter the castle. When we got in the first thing we noticed was the view. We thought the view of the castle was as good as it could get, but once inside looking down on the world below our jaws dropped. Seeing the green surrounding the castle from on high to far below that eventually connected to the rest of the city that led to the water. Imagining that ships were coming out of the fog (that actually wasn’t there, it was a surprisingly nice day) to wage war on the fortress where we stood we continued on. There was so much to see, but what we thought was really interesting was to see how much they actually relied on it for a city itself. There was royal banquet halls filled with weapons, the war memorial was stunning, the cathedral where they still do weddings, and the vault where they held the jewels of Scotland. After what seemed like an entire day in the castle we decided to retire early and headed back to the hostel for a nice night of relaxation and conversation with the other travelers we had met while staying in Scotland. We went to bed early with a good anticipation of heading to Sweden the next morning. See you in Stockholm…….