Edinburgh, Day 9 & 10

Saturday, February 5, 2011
What a long, but fun day. We left the hotel at around 7:30 AM and didn’t return until around 8:00 PM.

We visited the Highlands, saw some amazing sites, and learned a considerable amount of history from our tour guide (who talked non-stop).

Here were some fascinating facts that I learned while on the trip:

Kilts are made with yards of fabric.

Most of the land in the Highlands is owned privately by about 2% of the population. Also, there isn’t any public land at all. People can own their own homes, but have to take a ninety-nine-year lease from a landowner (most of the land has been passed down families lines for hundreds of years). Once a person dies, the lease expires and the family member who inherits the house needs to renegotiate the contract.

The tour guide thought that there were two positive things about the landowner system: 1) The people cared for the land and didn’t pollute it, so nature was essentially being kept the same (he felt that the government wouldn't do a good job of preserving the land) and 2) There’s an informal rule in the Highlands that allows people to trespass without consequences.

People pay thousands of pounds for the opportunity to fish on rivers and hunt deer.

Only about 2% of people supported signing the treaty of union in 1707.

On the tour we stopped for coffee at the foot of the Highlands to see some Highland cattle, visited a  castle while it was pouring down rain, ate fish and chips in a seaside village, took a break in a town that was owned by a noble, and stopped for a short time at a mall on the edge of a loch.

(Oh yeah, We were on the tour with about thirteen other people; we didn’t talk to one another much, but everyone seemed pleasant enough. There were four people from Spain, two from Greece, one from Switzerland, one from Australia, two from Canada, and three from Brazil.)

Here are some photos from our adventure:

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Thank goodness for lazy Sundays! We decided to sleep in this morning for two reasons: 1) we are a bit tired from our busy touring schedule and needed a bit of rest and 2) nothing is over very early here on 

Saturdays and Sundays, so there’s really no point in leaving the hotel before 10 AM. 

We went to church, had tea, walked around the city, visited a music store, went into a mall, bought some souvenirs for friends in China, and had a burger for lunch. It was enjoyable to have a bit of a slower day.

I'm not quite sure what's on the schedule for tomorrow, but I think we're going to visit the site where golf was invented so we can take pictures for Richard.