Edinburgh Rocks

Edinburgh looks like a set for Harry Potter - which should not be a surprise since JK Rowling sat in a coffee house called the Elephant House in old town Edinburgh and wrote the first book. Its architecture is unique in a "castles I have known" sort of sense and dark, winding side streets wind away from the main streets into little alleys where unusual shops can be found.

The Ediburgh Castle is spectacular. It sits atop an ancient volcanic peak and looks as if it has been carved into the mountainside itself. It is enormous - easily the largest caslte we have seen. And still very much alive and working today. The Black Guard is still barracked there and when we visited the place was very busy as the Queen was in town, Rod Stewart was about to play a concert in front of the castle doors and the Edinborough Tatoo was about to start.

The old town covers a lot of space and we didn't want to miss anything so, in addition to hours of walking, we also took a guided coach tour through the old town, and it was quite good - learned lots of history and saw a lot we would not likely have found on our own. We did however, quite by accident, find the burial place of Robert Lewis Stevenson. Just a stone in a grove of trees with RLS engraved on it. Also say Greyfriar's Bobby's statue and his final resting place. What a story - a little dog who went to keep guard on his master's grave every singe day for 14 years.

The Royal Mile made for great shopping and poking around into all the little stores where we met some colourful characters and very much enjoyed our day, despite the plunge in temperatures from the high 20s and low 30s we'd gotten used to in England to a high of about 15 degrees on Tuesday.

Dave and I went to a traditional Scottish restaurant for dinner last night but chickened out - no blood pudding or kidney pie for me, I'm afraid. I know - we are wimps. The rain started and it was quite cool so we also decided to forego a ghost tour in the evening - what tourists seem to do for fun around here!