He walked us over to our hostel and told us a few street names to remember so we could find our way back once he left us. We checked into the hostel and made our way back outside for our quick walking tour of the city. Edinburgh is very pretty and we were able to see a lot of it through our tour on the Royal Mile, which is made up of various streets in Edinburgh's Old Town. It has many beautiful buildings, castles, restaurants, and memorials.
It just looks like a city that contains a lot of history within it. Our tour guide told us a story about some of the history surrounding the city's grass market pubs, one of which was called the Last Drop. It was at this pub that people who were going to be executed in the public square would go for their literal last drop of something to drink.
After our walking tour, our guide left us until the next day and we had some free time to get dinner, and explore the rest of the city ourselves. We ate dinner at a pub and then walked around looking at all the shops. We got a few postcards, tried on some Scottish hats, went to the Last Drop, and finally back to our hostel for the night.
The next day, we headed for our two day trip to the Highlands. We got on a tour bus and made a few stops, with our first one being at Stirling Castle. It was only about 30 minutes away from Edinburgh and we were given most of the morning to explore the castle.
The castle had a lot of different rooms and we got to see The Great Kitchens that had replications of what food the castle-dwellers would cook.
After that we saw The Palace, where James V lived, and inside were several bedrooms decorated elaborately and containing unicorn tapestries everywhere. The castle was not only a castle, but was a learning center as well and we got to go through rooms that described what people of the Renaissance time would wear and what music they played.
There was also a room called the Stirling Heads Gallery which contained carvings of the heads of other monarchs, James V's family members, and notable figures such as Hercules. These heads used to be a part of the ceiling of the King's Inner Hall.
After looking at all of the exhibits, we walked around the walls of the castle to see the great views of towns in the distance, an ancient cemetery, and cannons.
After this little detour, we got back on the road in route to the Highlands. As we approached Glencoe, we were surrounded by huge mountains which were topped with snow!
Our tour guide told us a lot of movies were filmed in that area including "The Highlander", the James Bond film "Skyfall", and the Harry Potter series. If you're a Harry Potter fan, you'll be familiar with Hagrid's hut, and we were able to see the exact location where his hut used to be (in the circle of trees in the picture below)! However the hut wasn't there anymore because the area is preserved and has to be kept in it's natural form. This is why the Scottish Highlands are so beautiful!
We were given a lot of time to take pictures with the huge mountains in the distance, and stopped again in various other Scottish towns such as Killin and Tyndrum to see gorgeous waterfall views and more mountains.
Our final stop of the day was at Fort Augustus, and before we headed to the lodge we were staying at, we were taken to the Clansman Center. We had no idea what the Clansman Center was, but when we got there we were greeted by a man dressed in traditional Scottish attire who took the group of us into a hut-like home. He told us that this home was a typical dwelling for Scottish Highlanders in the past and in the small hut they would often fit ten family members as well as animals! Their living situation was pretty unpleasant in the way that he described the smells of the home and the fact that families would rarely change clothing. He then talked about the clothes worn by Highlanders and chose two students that were in our group to try on Scottish clothes, as he taught all of us how to create a kilt out of a large piece of fabric. It was really cool to see authentic Scottish clothes, tools, weapons, and hear all about it from a real Highlander as well! It was great to learn about Scottish culture while actually in Scotland.
Our next and final day in Scotland, we drove further north and headed to Loch Ness. As many know, this is the home to the infamous Lochness Monster, Nessie. Although we stopped at various parts of the loch (lake), including Urquhart Castle, we didn't spot Nessie anywhere! As a memento though, I made sure to buy a Nessie stuffed animal which I love!
After our unfortunately unsuccessful Nessie hunt, we headed to Culloden Battlefield and our tour guide told as about the large battle that took place there in the mid 1700s.
Finally, we headed back to Edinburgh to catch our train to London, but on the way made a few more scenic stops in which we saw Highland cows that were really funny looking and a staple of the Scottish Highlands.
We definitely learned a lot that weekend thanks to our knowledgable Scottish tour guide and were happy we decided to go on the trip because it gave us the chance to see so many different parts of Scotland.
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