Grave Dogs and Cloned Sheep...also known as Edinburgh

Hello everyone! My Spring Break continued today with a trip into Edinburgh.  We started at the bottom of the castle and made our way up to the Royal Mile and into castle.  It was really nice to see Edinburgh again.  All of the daffodils were blooming and everything looked really pretty, plus I saw some new things.

All of the flowers were blooming around the castle.  It was gorgeous! 

Once we made it to the top of the hill, we walked toward the castle.  It was really busy today.  There were a lot of school groups visiting, but the sun started to come out and made the views really pretty.  It was nice to see the castle again, but I still stand by the fact that Stirling Castle is far superior to Edinburgh Castle (which may be because I'm slightly biased).  Why is this? Well, Edinburgh Castle is very military, whereas Stirling is more royal home-y.  Also, Stirling Castle isn't over run with people in the off season.  But it was still really cool to visit Edinburgh Castle again and the crown jewels and whatnot.

After the castle, we walked down part of the Royal Mile and went into some of the shops.  I got a tartan wool scarf for pretty cheap (I was excited because I wanted something that had Scottish tartan on it even if I won't be able to wear it until next winter).  Then, we headed towards the Elephant House so that my parents could see where Harry Potter was written.  We also stopped by the statue of Greyfriars Bobby.

This is Greyfriars Bobby.  He has a really cute story.  The story goes that a man who was a police officer had a very loyal dog named Bobby.  When the owner died, Bobby followed the line of mourners all the way to the cemetery (Greyfriars) where he watched his owner be buried.  After the funeral was over, he refused to leave.  So, Bobby stayed in the cemetery by his masters side for 14 years until he died.  The local people got really into this and went to visit him and gave him food.  He's known for being the most famous dog in Scotland.

Then, we headed to the Scottish National Museum.  The exhibits there were really nice.  We saw the tomb of Mary Queen of Scots and all kinds of other stuff, like a guillotine type machine called the Maiden that cut peoples heads off back in the day.  We also saw Dolly the cloned sheep.

Here is the stuffed Dolly. Dolly is the first successful clone of an animal.  

After the museum we headed back to the car and drove around Hollyrood House and Scottish Parliament before heading back to the hotel.  It was a really fun day in Edinburgh! Tomorrow we're heading to the little sea town of Oban.  I've been wanting to go to Oban for a while now, so I'm extremely excited to visit it!