Scotland's Royal Mile and Edinburgh Castle

I LOVE SCOTLAND!!!!!! Scotland is #1. Sweden is now my 2nd best country. It is amazingly beautiful!!!! If I could live here, I would move in a heartbeat. Here's our cute Bed and Breakfast called Drumorne. The man in charge, Abby, was so nice and friendly. I would go back there again and recommend anyone to stay there. It's about a 1 1/2 miles to the Royal Mile where all the tourist stuff is. An easy and beautiful walk.

We saw this ruin castle on our walk to the Royal Mile. I'm not use to all this green. Arizona is quite brown.

At the start, or the bottom of the Royal Mile, there is the Scottish Castle called Palace of Holyroodhouse, where the Queen of England stays in Scotland.

This is the Palace of Holyroodhouse

Some pretty scenery up the Royal Mile. We tried a deep fried battered Mars Bar. Apparently it was founded here in Scotland. It was ok. I won't buy it again, but it was warm and gooey inside.

One of many "closes" which are basically alleyways between buildings

At the top of the Royal Mile there is this magnificent castle, Edinburgh Castle. I love how it's just built on top of this huge volcanic rock.

Mom and Jake at the entrance

Mom and I standing inside one of the guard pillars

This is a church inside the walls of Edinburgh Castle

We visited the place where they held the prisoners. This is one of several doors that held the prisoners in. They left many markings on them which were cool to see.

One of them had an early version of the American Flag "Stars and Stripes". Can you see it?

Another view of the castle inside the walls

This is a BIG GUN that they use now just about everyday at 1pm. They said that the Scottish people were very practical in that they didn't want to waist 12 bullets to signal at 12 o'clock when 1 bullet would do just fine. That's why they do it at 1pm. It's very loud and fun to watch.

I wanted to share our experience with the 1 o'clock gun. We didn't want to stand too close for fear it would be too loud. We got an excellent view from another area up higher. The weather was starting to look a little scary with rain about to drop, but we were able to get the gun going off before the rain really started. After the gun, we went and saw the Scottish crown jewels. There were very few compared to England, but these were the best because these Scottish crown jewels were hidden in my ancestors castle, Dunnottar Castle, keeping them from being stolen and destroyed by an Oliver Cromwell. YEA Keith Clan!!!!!! I'm soooooo stoked to see "my" castle tomorrow.