Abbeys

Hello! Today we toured around different abbeys south of Edinburgh near the England boarder.  We saw lots of different abbeys and towns today! All of the abbeys that we saw are ruins.  They all were attacked during the Protestant Reformation (thinking back to world history classes, this was the time when Henry VIII (the King of England with six different wives) decided he would become Protestant because the Catholic Church didn't allow divorce) in the 1500s, which is why they are in ruins.  Nonetheless, they all were really pretty.

First, we headed to Jedburgh Abbey.  This is an Augustine Abbey (meaning St. Augustine) and was home to lots of Canons (think a cross breed of a priest and monk) back in the day.  Since it was extremely windy today and rained on and off for most of the day, nobody was there but us.  So, we had the abbey all to ourselves.

Here's Jedburgh Abbey.

This is the inside archway area.  It was really cool looking.

Here I am with a Canon (please excuse my hair.  It was really windy and I just kind of gave up on it. Unlike my new friend here, I don't have a hood that can hide my wind-swept look.)

After we left Jedburgh, we headed to Kelso, to visit the next abbey.  The wind and rain was the worst at this point, so our visit to Kelso and Kelso Abbey was short lived.  The town was really cute, but it would have looked a whole lot better sans driving rain and hurricane force winds. 

Here's Kelso Abbey.

This is Flood Castle which is located in Kelso.  Unfortunately, this is as close to it as we could get.

Once we recovered from nearly being blown away, we headed toward Dryburgh Abbey (and actually as the name insinuates it was dry(er anyway) in Dryburgh).  This abbey is famous for being the burial place of Sir Walter Scott (famous Scottish writer, poet, and playwright (he was also a lawyer and very involved within the political life of Scotland).  His most popular work is called Waverley which is basically a historic novel).  On the way to the abbey, we stopped at Scott's View Point.

This was Sir Walter Scott's favorite view.  He wrote in his will that on his way to being buried at the abbey, we wanted the funeral procession to stop at this point, so that he could see his favorite view one more time before his burial.  It was a really pretty view.  You could see the hills and the River Tweed.

Dryburgh Abbey was also empty even though the weather was improving.  This abbey was really cool to see too.  

Here's Dryburgh Abbey.

I was really excited because there were sheep sitting right behind the abbey, so I could get really close.  Isn't the lamb adorable?  I got about as close as Mama sheep would let me.  I was really excited.

After Dryburgh, we went to the town of Melrose to see our last abbey of the day.  This abbey is famous for a fun reason (at least I find it fun).  Robert the Bruce's heart is buried here.  He ordered that when he died, his heart be cut from his body and buried at Melrose Abbey, which he had helped to get built.  Nobody is really sure where in the abbey his heart is buried, but it's thought to be where the alter used to stand.

Here is Melrose Abbey.  It sits in a really pretty location surrounded by hills.

Our final destination of the day, was to Abbotsford, Sir Walter Scott's home. 

Here's Abbotsford.  It kind of looked like a mini-castle.

On our drive back to Edinburgh, we decided to take the scenic route and head over to the east coast of Scotland.  In true Scottish fashion, the weather had improved by this point (it was still really windy though) and turned out to be a beautiful day.

The ocean looked really pretty.  Especially with the new and improved weather that moved in.

This is Tantallon Castle.  We saw it as we made our way back to Edinburgh.

We haven't quit planned what we're going to see tomorrow.  We may drive to another castle, go to Glasgow or something else.  I'm sure that it will be a good day though!