Castles, Cats and Coastlines

Day Thirty-four – Edinburgh

Flipping eck! A whole day of sunshine! Maybe I was a little harsh on the weather man after all. ;-)

Today was our last day in England and we finished on a high. Not only did we have glorious weather, we also saw a great castle and had a lovely drive up into Scotland.

We started the day at Alnwick Castle, family home of the Percy's for just over 700 years. Not only is it the best preserved castle we've seen, it had an amazing set of state rooms, a marvellous little museum with all sorts of antiquities and a plenty of Harry Potter stuff for the kids.

Alnwick as I said is a very well preserved castle. Despite (or perhaps because of) the restoration work being carried out it is in excellent condition. The walls, towers and living areas of the castle are all in very good nick, every roofed structure being intact and containing some excellent exhibits.

The first place we visited were the state rooms. You aren't allowed to take photos which is quite possibly the biggest disappointment we've had in that regard. To say the rooms are SPECTACULAR is not doing them justice. The quality, volume and variety of art, furniture, sculpture and other items is something you have to see to believe. If at some point you pop past our house then please *demand* to see the catalogue we bought. Highlights (if you can pick some!) were the death warrant of the Thomas Percy, 7^th Earl of Northumberland for treason (he was Catholic and a supporter of Mary Queen of Scots), van Dyck's portrait of Algernon, 10^th Earl, the Guard Chambers containing the ENTIRE armoury of the Tenantry Volunteers (all of em!) and the library.

Next up the kids tried their hand at archery in the inner ward, we walked the walls, checked out various exhibits in the Constable's and Postern Towers and I had a quick squizz at the regimental museum of the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers (whose battle honours include Badajoz in Spain and Omdurman in Egypt).

Last up we spent some time in "Harry Pottter Land" as I called it. The kids tried out all sorts of film-themed activities including a castle-wide hunt for scrambled names from the films, Anna made a spell book and both Anna and Jenni dressed up in medieval costume. We also got to meet Bunyip the castle cat (quite a monster size-wise but very friendly). All up a brilliant way to finish in England.

We left just before lunch and headed North, enjoying the drive in the sun for once. Along the way we saw Holy Island (from afar only unfortunately). We stopped for lunch just before the border and then drove into our fourth and final different country in Scotland.

An hour or so later we were in Edinburgh and not long after that settled into our last apartment of the trip which is lovely I might add, probably the best place to stay in the whole trip (family aside!)

So we've got two and a half days left before we fly. Hopefully we can get in some good sights before we leave to finish on a high.

Cheers,

Millsy