UK 2: Out of London and into Edinburgh

I hadn't been able to make a post until tonight.  I had written my first post two nights ago but the internet was too slow to upload the pictures.

Yesterday, we woke up early for a Harry Potter locations tour around London.  I'm not a Harry Potter fan, but Stephanie is, and Miles likes the movies as well.We started out near the London Bridge, took the subway in the middle, and ended near Leicester.  He was a pleasant fellow with a ridiculously loud, and likely exaggerated, belly laugh.  He dispensed Harry potter trivia, showed us locations with film photos for comparison, and showed us around a bit of London.  It lasted two and a half hours.

An odd looking building that I saw during the Harry Potter tour and again at the Tower of London, later in the day

A cool building that I kept seeing, while on the Harry Potter tour

We ate at a nearby pub, The Bear and the Staff, which I had a taken a picture of the night before.  We left at nearly three o'clock for the Tower of London, which Stephanie had rushed through when she had gone once before, during her study abroad program.

The Tower of London is a castle in the middle of London.  It is definitely large, but other than that, I was completely unimpressed.  We had to wait in lines at multiple points, in order to continue walking around the ramparts.  I much prefer the more intimate experiences I had with castles like Gravensteen in Ghent, or a castle with more to see, such as Carcassonne.  One really neat part of the experience, however, were two ravens who were perched around the wall, which were very socialized around humans.



Our sleeper train would not be boarding until ten at night, and there aren't many kid friendly things to do to keep occupied in a cold London night that isn't a Friday(Fridays have alternating museums open late).  We decided to visit King's Cross Train Station, for its Harry Potter "Platform 9 3/4" and gift shop.  The platform had a massive line, and the shop, a shorter line.  The inside of the station itself was incredible.



The sleeper train arrived nearly an hour late, so we couldn't board until 11.  We had two adjoining rooms, linked by a door that we kept open.  There were bunk beds in both rooms.  Our bathroom was down the hall, which was disappointing because we had our own bathroom in our room when we took the auto train down from Washington, DC to Orlando, when Miles and I moved back down to Florida in 2014.  We went straight to sleep.

We had to be off the train by 8:00.  We got off at 8:10.  We all slept well, but were still exhausted.  I hadn't taken a nap during the previously day, which I've needed lately due to my semi cold.  I've just been way more wiped out that normal, which combined with the walking involved in these trips, has been difficult.

We walked a brief distance to our hotel, located right on the Royal Mile, a short walk from Edinburgh Castle.  Our hotel room is the nicest room I've ever had.  I will be sure to take a picture in the morning.  It has two floors, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen table, and even our own washer and dryer.  Since I do not have that picture now, I will instead show a picture of the church that greets us a few steps outside of the hotel.



After eating breakfast, we went to our hotel, and after a little while of sleeping on their couches, they had our room ready early for us.  We slept way too long, and didn't get ready to leave until 2:30 PM.  My semi cold strikes again.  I went online to look at the hours for Edinburgh Castle.  It advertised an explorer pass that gave access to multiple castles for a discounted price.  For just a few more dollars than Edinburgh Castle, we could see three other ones that we are planning to visit.  We walked over to the castle and picked up our pass.



We decided to walk to a nearby part of Edinburgh, named Dean Village.  While walking down from Edinburgh Castle, we caught a view of The Scott Monument, made in the honor of writer Sir Walter Scott.  Right near it was a small set of carnival rides, likely brought in for the holidays, that was still up.  This created an interesting juxtaposition that I had to capture on camera.



On our way to Dean Village we caught a nice side glance at the castle and then quite a bit later, down the street was a cathedral that looked just a little bit like the Magic Kingdom castle.



From here, we walked along the river, The Water of Leith,  towards another town, Stockbridge.  The walk was pleasant, but only the view near Dean village lived up to its reputation.



It was quite dark at this point, so we headed back to the Royal Mile and ate at a local pub, which had incredible food.  Right around the corner was a tower named Camera Obscura and World of Illusions. 

We will have to go back to view their show that was included with our ticket, but everything else was open.  We started on the sixth floor, which offered some incredible views of the city.



We walked our way down, going through room of room of illusions and all kinds of tricks of the eye.  There was even a mirror maze and a spiraling tunnel, which we've been seeing a lot of these days.  The place was incredibly varied and quite large.  Miles and Stephanie had a ball.



Edinburgh, while sprawling quite far from the old city center, is much more interesting to me than London was.  I honestly couldn't wait to get out of London.  I much prefer the feel and look of Edinburgh.

UK 1: London Arrival, food, a museum, an eye, and a dungeon

On Tuesday night, I began feeling very rundown and had a bit of the chills.  By our Saturday night flight to London, I was just feeling the exhaustion part of whatever ailment I had.  The plane had a lot of vacant seats.  People were jumping into empty rows for comfort.  Miles and I had an extra seat next to us.

They kept the lights on for a very long time compared to other overnight flights that I've been on.  We had pretty poor sleep overall.  We arrived at a few minutes past 6 am, at Gatwick Airport, a less popular airport than others in London.  We breezed through customs, with no one in front of us in line.  I imagine not many flights were arriving that early.  I had bought tickets on the express train.  We walked right onto the train.  There were only a few others with us.  The ride was quick and smooth, the chairs comfortable.

The express train brought us into Victoria station.  I picked up an Oyster card, their electronic subway card.  I was informed that children ten and younger ride the subway for free.  After a five minute ride, we were at our home station.  Our hotel was a 3 minute walk away.  We dropped off the luggage and searched out breakfast.



Across from the train station was an American style 50's diner.  I thought that it would serve all food on the menu, but they were unfortunately only serving breakfast food.  Next, we made our way to the British Museum, a free museum nearby.



On the way, we walked through a local park, named Russell square.  At the entrance, we saw our first English phone booth.

Inside the museum, the first room we explored was dedicated to Egypt.   I am not a huge fan of museums, but seeing the Rosetta Stone was pretty neat.  The next area was greece, which was similar to what we had seen in the Louvre.  We spent the most time in a series of rooms displaying clocks.  Miles was most fascinated by a clock that measured 30 second intervals by having a ball roll back and forth across a wooden board, and then flipping and going back the other way.  The placard explained that these clocks were not very accurate.  It also said that the ball traveled 2,500 miles a year.  Last, we saw a viking loot found in a chest in a local river, with some in the shape of Thor's Hammer.  Miles did not know that Thor was a real thing, only knowing him from Marvel movies.  Finally, we found an area displaying jade.

The Rosetta Stone

Rosetta stone close up

We were both exhausted by this point, so we headed back for a nap.  We walked past St. Pancras Station, which was in a beautiful building.  We also took a brief stop in the British LIbrary, to take a glance at the Magna Carta.



We awoke from our nap with a call from the front desk, informing us that Stephanie had arrived.  We ate at a local Italian restaurant.  Everything near Westminster Palace and Big Ben were closed off to fireworks by reservation.  We walked through Trafalgar Square and the neighboring areas before returning to our room for the night.



This morning, we got up in time to arrive at our reservation for the London Dungeon at 10:45.  Two of our tickets were bought in combination with the Eye for a discount.  The London Dungeon was an hour and a half experience that involved actors walking with us from room to room, playing notorious characters from London such as Jack the Ripper and Sweeney Todd, along with some city history such as the Black Plague and the Great Fire of 1666.  There was also a short boat ride in the dark, that ended up having us go backwards, along with a short ride at the end where we were buckled in and then dropped 10 feet.  It was dark and atmospheric, with well acted pieces.  I just wished there weren't so many people cramped in for some of the rooms.



Next door was the London Eye, a huge, and very slow, Ferris Wheel.  I opted out of this one, but Miles and Stephanie enjoyed it.  Apparently, someone proposed in their car.  We walked across the bridge toward Big Ben, which is undergoing renovation.  Just over the bridge, we ran right into the New Year's Day Parade, which blocked us from reaching Buckingham Palace.  We followed the only walk-able path, east, and found a pub for a late lunch.  We encouraged Miles to try fish and chips, but he decided on the slightly less adventurous hamburger.  The pub had an excellent bread and hummus.



At this point, I was feeling really tired and went back to the room for a four hour nap.  Stephanie and Miles went to the Museum of London, one of the only places open today.  They had a great time and I woke up feeling much better.  For dinner, we went to a nearby Mexican restaurant, which was closed, and found a nearby pub instead.  The pub was not crowded and I loved the atmosphere.  The food was fantastic.  I had a vegan lasagna.

Tomorrow is our long final day in London before taking an overnight train to Edinburgh, Scotland.