Last Call!

We have made it back to Boston! The trip home was pretty uneventful, but goodness I did not miss the summer heat and humidity!


Our last day in Edinburgh was very relaxed and very lovely.
Actually, we went to a concert on Wednesday night at this tiny little bar venue - the bands were surprisingly good! So that was a fun celebration to the end of Michael's (participation in) his conference. And we went to dinner at this little mussel and oyster bar, which was delicious, so Wednesday night was a win overall.

On Thursday, we basically wandered around the city - we hiked up Calton Hill, another vista point in the city with a bunch of war monuments built on top, including one to the soldiers lost in the Napoleonic Wars that was modeled after the Pantheon in Athens, because apparently Edinburgh fancied itself as the Athens of the North. It was a very lovely stroll. We could see the big park where we hiked around on Tuesday, and it was kind of impressive to see how high we climbed!
  We also walked through the Princes Gardens, which are built where the old walled city of Edinburgh had a moat, called Nor Loch. It was a man-made lake, intended to be the fourth side of the city defenses, and was drained in the 1700s after England and Scotland were unified and rich people could move out of the city boundaries without being worried about being attacked by marauders, or something. They turned it into a big pretty park, which I thought was a nice use of land.
   Overall, I think Edinburgh may be one of my favorite cities. All European cities are impressively old, but somehow Edinburgh has managed to merge the midieval city with the modern era without losing too much of the history or limiting the prospects of the future.

All the flowers in Princes Gardens making Michael's allergies sad. But they are pretty!

On top of Calton's Hill, in front of the Napoleonic War Monument (which has 12 columns.. apparently it was supposed to have 26 but they ran out of funds, but it's still very large and very impressive) and Nelson's Monument, who was the naval commander who led the United Kingdom to lots of military victories until he got shot himeself.

A lovely view of Edinburgh Castle and Castle Hill. I really love how the city is melded with the geography and geology, instead of just carpeting its whole environment.

We climbed those things!

We also tried to get a coffee from The Elephant House, where J.K. Rowling penned the first Harry Potter book. But lots of other fans/locals in need of coffee had the same idea, so we just took a picture and got coffee down the street. My guess is that the cafe used to be good for writers, but maybe not so much anymore.

So ends this installment of Michael and Valerie in Europe! We had a wonderful time, and look forward to the next!