finally made it to Edinburg

Had great fun in Edinburgh this time except for the rain. No surprise there. We toured Hollyrood Palace. Queen Elizabeth stays here for a week each year but doesn't like it much because it's drafty. She prefers to stay at Balmoral when she's in Scotland. It's nice to have choices.  

Evidently Queen Victoria also found it drafty becaused she commissioned huge tapestries to be hung all over the place. For some reason the pictures I just added showed up in reverse order.  From top to bottom: (1) Our first view of Edinburgh Castle; (2) Hollyrood Palace; (3) Another view of Edinburgh Castle which is huge.  The oldest parts date back to 1000 years ago. (4) Me standing by Hadrian's Wall which we saw on the way to Scotland. I thought one picture of me would prove that I actually went on this trip. At one time it extended all across England to keep out the wild Scots and was over 20 feet tall. Not much left now but you can still see stretches of it. People go on walking trips along the length of it. Very close to where we viewed the wall was a small village with some very old looking buildings.  One barn looked suspiciously like it was built from stones that were once part of the wall. Our history lesson for the day concerned King James VI of Scotland who became King James I of England (the first king of both countries). He was the King James of Bible fame. If you want to know the dates you'll need to look it up. Somewhere in the 1400's I think, but after a while all the dates started running together.