Road Trip to Edinburgh: Day 1

Well, we are back on the road again! And this time, with a baby. I had forgotten how much extra work it is to travel with a baby! So much extra stuff to pack!

Anyway, Tim and Maddie had this week off from school, and Ethan had Monday off for Presidents' Day, so we thought it would be a good time for a road trip. And what better place, than our northern neighbor of Scotland.

The capitol city of Edinburgh (pronounced "ed-in-burra;" not "burg" like "Pittsburgh") is about a 4 hour drive from our house. We had heard that it was a great city to visit, so we planned our trip. We left last Saturday (Valentines' Day), and returned on Tuesday.

Since we were traveling with a baby, we looked for ways to break up our trip. On the way there, we stopped at a town called Carlisle, which is located on the western coast of England, very close to the Scottish border. While we were there, we stopped and did a quick tour of Carlisle Castle. This castle was originally built in 1093 (although what you see here in the pictures was rebuilt in the 19th century), and its purpose was to keep the northern border of England secured against the threat of invasion from Scotland. It has been the site of many significant battles, and has changed hands along the way. Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned here for a short time after her flight from Scotland, as well.
Although brief, our tour of the castle was very interesting. This part of the castle was called "the Keep," I suppose because it is where they kept supplies, weapons, and prisoners. As a part of our tour, we were able to see the dungeons where prisoners were kept. In the photo above, can you see the smooth stones in the center? Those are called the "Licking Stones" because the prisoners would lick them to get the condensation off of them. Gross, huh?All in all, it was a worthwhile stop, as it allowed the kids time to run around for a while, and I could feed Collin.

After our time at the castle, we got back in the car and finished our trip. Except for some fog and some trouble actually finding our hotel (we saw the hotel, but could not get to it as it was on the other side of a railroad track... very frustrating!!), everything went fine.

Our hotel was very nice. The hotel chain is called Novotel, which I had never heard of before. It was very modern, and even had a pool. The kids loved that, of course. In fact, if you ask them what their favorite part about our trip to Edinburgh was, they would say the pool.

Well, there was a lot more to our trip than the pool. I will blog about our day in the city of Edinburgh next time, which included a visit of Edinburgh Castle. Two castles in two days? That the UK for you!