Well, last night was the best rest we had. Maybe because we ere not all hot, sweaty and tired. The further north we drove, the cooler it became. Such a welcome change. We woke up to some traffic on the road next to the house. But we never heard it through the night. Our place was really clean and comfortable. Sometimes with AirBNB you get some fairly good deals. This one cost us $70 and it was on the road to our next destination.
After getting showered, I quickly used Google Maps to find a bakery, somewhere close by where we could get some fresh goodies. I found a place that was supposedly .25 miles away...real close. So I convinced Denise that we can just walk to it. I had looked on the map to determine which direction to walk. So off we go in the direction to the bakery. But as we walk, the sidewalk comes to an end and we are just staring at fields. But I was convinced we were going the right. Due to the busy traffic, we decided to quickly return, gather our stuff and get in the car and leave. Which we did. However, I turned the opposite direction this time and low and behold, going the OTHER direction, we could have thrown a rock and hit Sally's...a cute little bakery\sandwich shop. So we went in. We both had hot chocolates with freshly baked chocolate\raspberry scones. They were SOOOO good!
After our breakfast stint, we headed east to Newcastle and then turned north to Alnwick...pronounced 'Annick'. That would be one of our favorite stops on the trip...the Alnwick Castle. This is a famous castle where movies and shows have used many times for many scenes. It is also the winter home of the Duke and Duchess of Northumberland. They are royal descendants from the Percy family who originated from France and somehow claimed this region of the world to be theirs and then built this castle. But the royals now close it down in the fall and come and live here during the winter...which is odd because it gets really cold here. Downton Abbey, Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, Transformers and many other shows have used the castle as backdrops to scenes in their shows or movies. But the biggest show to adopt this castle for quite a lot is Harry Potter movies. And for that reason, they had lots of interaction stuff like shooting arrows, flying on brooms and so on for young and old to try out. But the castle itself was pretty amazing on such a beautiful setting. We spent about 3.5 hours there...which was really surprising to me.
Once we left the castle we turned north and headed to Edinburg. One thing I wanted to mention was about the radio stations. They love old, soft, rock music around these parts. And we were in heaven listening to all the golden oldie tunes of our era on many different radio stations. It was pretty cool.
The trip to Edinburgh was a real pretty drive up the east coast of England. It sits on the North Sea. And it is pretty cool here. I think the lows will be in the 40's...high tomorrow will be mid 60's. Glad I packed some long pants. We found the AirBNB apartment fine. We always wonder because getting the address that they send into the GPS of the car is challenge. We usually end up using our phones' GPS because you can touch the address link and it will take you to a map. And that is how we ended up getting here. This place is in a big apartment complex. It is quite nice.
For dinner, we walked over to a marketplace and bought a bunch of stuff. Denise bought some BBQ Pork Mac-n-Cheese that needed to be heated in the oven. But...the oven would not get hot. It would get warm...but not hot. We tried everything to get that thing to heat up. No luck. So we gave up and just nuked it in the microwave. It was good nonetheless. I also bought some 'Sweet Chili' chicken...that was in a bag at a sales price. I did not know what I was actually getting inside the bag. It turned out to be 5 or 6 chicken legs. They were pretty tasty.
Tomorrow is a big Edinburgh city tour day. I think we will do a Hop on, Hop off bus just to be fairly efficient. We do plan to use city transportation as we hear that you just cannot park in the downtown area. More to come tomorrow on all this.
Another day in the books, we're in Scotland and we're still alive....
Some pictures....
We stayed in the building in front of our car here. The hosts house is the the right and ours to the left. You enter through the little breeze way that has the little roof over it.
My breakfast. Now I want you to compare my hot chocolate to Denise's!
Here is a better shot of the differences....she paid 30 pence more. I think it was worth it! The stick coming out is a chocolate stick with a mountain of yummy cream. I missed that boat!!!
The green scenery that we've seen all over this large island....
Alnwick....you can kind of see a castle wall at the end of the road here. We found free parking within 50 yards of the entrance gate...our lucky day.
The castle entrance...
One of the many castle grounds. They actually had a big garden that you could pay a ton of money to walk through. But we passed on that. And in the end, we were glad as we spent way more time inside this castle than we though we would.
It was one of the better castles that I've been to.
This young lady was a tour guide. It was all about how movies and TV had used the castle. She was quite funny and charming...
They had a little walk through part called Dragon Quest...little kids thought it scary. It was pretty tame. Anyway, this was the dragon found inside only he was all lit up in red like he was breathing fire.
Our lunch that we shared...meat pie and chips!
It took a while of yelling 'Up'...but finally my broom responded and levitated up to my hands. I think I did better than Denise.
This is me starting my take off on my broom. I had to hurry so I could coach Denise on how to get her broom to levitate and eventually fly her broom.
It took a bit, but finally Denise was successful on getting her broom to come 'Up'.
I was a bit worried that once Denise got her broom to take off with her on board that she would fly into the wall as her hair was always in her face.
Starting to climb...it was pretty impressive seeing her fly around the castle. The witch thing just comes out naturally for some. :-) She loved it. It was fun.
The castle from a distance...pretty impressive I thought.
After a week of driving...or so it feels...we finally crossed into Scotland. Another country to our list. I'm sad we will short sheet it a bit. Not enough time to see all that we'd like to see. But we can always come back someday.
Views of the North Sea....
Lots of modern day windmills....
Lots of green fields like this on our drive...
Finally in Edinburgh, close to our apartments, a Morrisons SuperMarket. It is kind of like a Target or Walmart. We bought stuff for dinner tonight and breakfast tomorrow. We started eating the 'chewey' onion rings immediately.
One chicken leg down the trap...
Another good day..
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