Edinburgh and back to London...

Sharon and Karl came to Leeds the day after boxing day, and we leapt into a hire car and headed further north to Edinburgh. John had told us to head sort-of via the east coast, through the (apparently) beautiful countryside called the Scottish Borders. But the silly sat nav that I hired took us via Manchester and the west coast. We were on the major freeway before we realised, and couldn't turn back...such a bummer.

But we made it to Edinburgh just after dark and picked up our keys to an apartment on the famous Royal Mile (pic right). It was accessed by a covered lane with an overhanging sign for the Jolly Judge pub, and we took a winding old stone staircase to the third floor. The apartment was nice - old wooden floors and all that.

The next day we headed to the amazing Edinburgh Castle (just up the road from where we were staying), high up on the hill in the old town - overlooking the 'new' town down below. We spent that afternoon shopping and wandering. In fact we spent the next morning happily exploring again, before heading back to London on the train.

We set out into London on sunday, where we got out of the tube at Westminster again, but this time walking along the other side of the Thames, underneath the Eye - pausing to spend an hour or two at a Star Wars exhibition! It had props and models from all 6 films - I had my photo taken next to R2-D2 (he made me feel tall!).

Afterwards we walked right along the Embankment to Shakespeare's Globe theatre where we took a tour - and it was one of the best tours I've taken. The guide effectively described the types of people that would attend a play, with penny stinkers standing on the floor - a penny to get in, and stinkers cos they would never have bathed or changed their clothes, and ate garlic to keep the plague away - imagine it! The cost of seats increased depending on the view and height. It's the 3rd Globe to be built, the first (in the 1600's) had it's thatched roof catch fire when a cannon went off as part of a play. The current Globe has the first thatched roof to be 'built' in hundreds of years - and has sprinklers!

It's currently getting colder, but still not enough to snow.....