By Bryn: Day 4 Edinburgh Festival Time

Wow, what an amazing city. We started the day with a Scottish breakfast consisting of beans, ham (which they call bacon), tattie scone (potato scone), scrambled eggs, pan seared tomato, and sausage. The tattie scone was probably my favorite. Kinds like a lighter hash brown, not quite as greasy.

After breakfast the whole group boarded the bus and made our way into town. We started with a short walking tour of the town around the princes garden. Our guide Tim pointed out a couple of the monuments around the area and their history. Around the city there are monuments and historical buildings about every

block. It does make remembering all of them a bit difficult but all my photos will jog my memory.

After our short tour a group of about 8 from our 24 went up the hill, which there are many, towards Edinburgh Castle. Some people decided not to go because it cost 16 pounds to get in.

It was totally worth paying to get in. I mean how often are you going to be able to walk around a 800 year old castle. We started by going on an included guided tour around the castle. I loved listening to our guide's accent plus he had lots of info that we would have not seen or read around the castle.

From the tour our next stop was seeing the Scottish crown jewels which include the crown, sword, sector and the Stone of Destiny. The stone supposedly is where the monarchs of the past 1000 years were crowned upon. England stole it from he Scottish 700 years ago and built a throne over it for when they crowned their monarchs including Queen Elizabeth. It was returned to Scotland in the past 15 years or so.

At the top of the hill next to the crown jewels building there was an amazing memorial that was dedicated to those who lost their lives in WWIand WWII. The amount of lives lost in WWI was pretty large for Scotland. They had books around the memorial divided by the different branches of the military. The books listed all the names of those lost from the first world war to current wars.

The final stop at the top of the hill was the great hall. The hall was lined with weaponry from various battles over the years. We primarily went in to watch two performers talk about pikes and muskets. Unfortunately it was raining outside so they were not able to shoot them off. And of course I took a photo with both guys. Very important.

The last stop at the castle was watching the 1 o'clock cannon shot. It was used by sailing ships in the bay area to set their watch to. They shoot only a blank from the cannon. If it were a live bullet the cannon has a range 10 miles. On the way out of the castle I stopped by the soldier who shot the cannon and took a picture with her and the blank. That was a very large blank. About the size of a gallon jug.

After the castle we grabbed lunch and wandered a while around the new town area. Mostly higher priced shops that most of us where not interested. So myself and Jackie started back up to the royal mile. I had looked into going to the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo after learning a little bit more about. The ticket office was on the way to the mile so we stopped by to give getting a ticket a try since Jackie already had hers. I went up and got the last ticket for the night. They told me that they had been sold out all day and one ticket had just come back. Score.

Jackie and I walked back up to the Royal mile, picked up some flyers from all the performers from the fringe and decided on picking up tickets for one of them and headed down the the show hall. Now keeping in mind that there were about 250 show halls around the city and some of them were on the upper level streets and some on the lower. Ours was on the lower street while we were trying to find it on he upper streets in an on and off rain.

We finally found our show which was a 3 man team playing multiple characters about finding pirate treasure, finding treasure again and everything in between. It dragged a bit and there were too many characters. If they would have cut about 15 minutes of the show it would have been pretty good. Well at least it was only £6. And it burned some time before the highlight of he trip.

After dinner we headed back up to the castle where the Tattoo was. The seats were set all along the esplanade. My seat ended up being in the area where all the American tour groups were seated. Very strange. I had a nice time talking to he lady next to me from Cincinnati until he announcer started talked about 30 minutes before he show. I thought he was just saying a couple messages but he ended up talking the entire time. And then it was time for the show.

300 or more bagpipers came streaming out of the castle gates. My mouth was literally open in awe. Holy crap! There were great acts from around the world including a US navel band. There were too many great acts for me to even write down. Some of the highlights were the Highland dancers doing a number about Whiskey, the drill team from Norway with the most amazing and precise movements and an incredible drum line.