Day 3 Getting to Edinburgh

From York we drove north to cross the border to Scotland to Edinburgh.  But before crossing the border we stopped for a little history.  Our first stop of the day was at Hadrian's wall.  

This was the wall that created the northern most border of the Roman empire.  The wall still exists in many places along the border.Our stop was where the officers outposts and barracks were located along the wall .

Not much of the original building was there but the base rocks are still there.  They built at the top of a hill so there were fantastic views any ways you looked.  The wall traveled off into the distance east and west.  Lots of hills to climb and puddles to step in.

We had about an hour to walk around the site which had sheep moving throughout.  They would run away of you if you got too close.  Too bad, I wanted to pet an English sheep.  Sheep poop was a definite difficulty about walking around the site.  It was everywhere.  And I took way too many pictures of sheep.

Totally worth it.  After all the pictures and some sore calves we boarded the bus to head across the border to Scotland.

Our bus made a short stop at the border.  No stamp for the passport the border but there was a bagpiper.

It was the perfect way to enter Scotland, minus the lack of stamp.  Poor sad passport.  It was a quick stop at the border before continuing our drive into the city.

We did make a short pitstop for break from sitting on the bus for hours on end.  There was tons of crap to buy of course and I'm afraid to say that I have non buyers remorse.  Why didn't I take this little guy home.

Oh that's right, I thought I could only take a carry on and being on day 4 of 25 I thought they may be more important things to bring home.  Mistake!

Because of traffic we arrived a bit late into the city.  We only had 10 minutes to get settled in our rooms before our bus took us to the Royal mile downtown.

I ordered Haggis, tatties (potato), and neeps (turnip).  The Haggis had a texture similar to browned beef.  All the ingredients were stacked on top of each other so you didn't taste anything singularly.  I actually enjoyed it very much.  For dessert I enjoyed a whiskey  cream and raspberry concoction.  It wasn't very sweet and only had a touch of whiskey.  

After dinner most of the tour group went to get tickets for a Fringe Festival show.  The festival happens every year in August for 3 weeks.  Someone in our group suggested a comedian from the festival so most of us bought tickets.  We headed into a church apparently for a racey comedic show.  His name was Jim Jeffries.  Someone mentioned that he was going to have a standup on Comedy Central soon so I expected him to be good.  And he was.  Lots of strong language but it was all part of his style and stories so it worked.  Great show with lots of great bits.  I would see him again.

After a long day many of us were tuckered out and hailed a cab back to our hotel.

My next adventure was staying in probably will be my favorite city of the tour, Edinburgh, for two more days.