Jet lag? What jet lag?

We arrived in Edinburgh around 11am local time, found our hotel (thanks to Beth's navigation and map reading prowess), dropped off our bags and headed for....breakfast at "Two Thin Laddies". They didn't get thin with the portions - amazing lattes and the biggest bacon, egg and sausage sandwhiches ever!



The highlight of Edinburgh (other than the fact the sun came out while we were at the castle) was the tour called "The Real Mary King's Close". A Close is small alley that runs between 2 tenement blocks. Mary King's Close was leveled in the late 1800s to build the Royal Exchange, but due to geography of the city, several flats were preserved underground, becoming the foundations for the new building. The tour took us through several levels of these medieval town alley, and our guide Agnes (aka Karen - who was a character and a half!) told us stories of life of ordinary people from the middle to lower classes, in the 1600s to 1800s. There were stories of the plague that made it a ghost town, some ghost stories, some scandals and a description of "garde lou". You can look that one up!

This gives you an idea of a Close. The old ones were narrower and could up to 6 stories tall - so little natural light got to ground level. They were all angled downhill to the Nor' Loch - which was handy "sanitation". This polluted waterway became the Prince's Gardens, and all that fertilizer made them lovely and green!

We both loved Edinburgh - its culture, its history, its beauty, its friendly people...and Beth discovered Boots the Chemist. We keep going back to Boots.