Day 1 in Paris: the Highlights

We have 2 days in Paris (upped from our original plan of 1), with the second day planned for touring the palace and grounds of Versailles, a little ways outside of Paris itself. Day one was set to be our tour of the "must see" items in the city itself,  and we didn't do too bad! The only recommendation that we missed out on was going to the top (of the Eiffel Tower, Arc De Triumph, OR Notre Dame!), either due to the VERY long lines or the amount of time we spent instead drinking wine and eating one of the most amazing lunches I've had in quite some time. (Worth it.)

We thankfully took a cab TO the Eiffel Tower, and planned to walk our way back to the hotel from there while seeing everything on our list. (Thank goodness.  If we'd tried to walk both ways, I'm not sure I'd be making it to the next city! ) From there we walked by the palace and the Arc De Triumph, and then down the famous Champs De Elysees. (It doesn't look too different from any other fancy shopping district, although the park at the end of it is nice.) We finished off our daylight hours by walking over to Notre Dame and exploring the indoors, although the towers has closed early and so we didn't make it up.

After a "quick" dinner in a sidewalk cafe, we headed over for the last few hours that the Louvre was open. This seemed to be a great way to see the Louvre; the line was short, the crowds were small and since we've been moving quickly through museums anyway so we don't end up "museum'd out" before the end of our trip. The building itself is huge and beautiful; I think we found ourselves admiring the architecture as often as the art itself.

London in Not Quite 24 Hours

We weren't sure whether we would be stopping in London when we planned this trip, since I had been there before and Patrick was more interested in other places. Once Scotland and Paris were both on our itinerary, however, it seemed silly to leave it out. The compromise was that we arrived on Monday night at about 6:15 and left the next day at 6 pm.

In London, we did achieve our goal of a whirlwind tour (maybe a bit more whirlwind than we planned at the end)! The first night after we checked in, we decided to challenge the stereotype that it's hard to find good food in the UK with an Indian restaurant, and most definitely succeeded.  Rather than going back to the hotel and to bed, we followed it up with a walk to see Big Ben, Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament at night. (While they are impressive during the day, I think that Big Ben for sure is far more memorable at night. Although it always makes me think of Peter Pan.) After a much longer walk than planned along the River Thames (my directional sense has not improved since my last time in London and giving Patrick shiny things to take photos of doesn't help his), we finally found our way back to our hotel for the night. The next morning was a quick start with pastries and coffee and what we intended to be a quick, hour or so expedition to the British Museum. We ended up there for closer to 4 hours, so our next stops at the Tower of London and Tower Bridge, Buckingham Palace and the long walks in between were necessarily quick walk-bys.

While we didn't investigate anything except the British Museum in any depth, we did both enjoy ourselves and got a great overview of the city!

Exploring the Countryside - Our Last day in scotland

All total, we had a little over 48 hours in Scotland. Most of that was spent in Edinburgh,  but on our last day I wanted to cross something off my bucket list: going to Lockerbie, Scotland. I am not by any means a genealogy nut,  but for some reason I've always wanted to go to the town where my name and ancestors came from - so that was the agenda for part of our last day in Scotland.

We started the morning in the Witchery, where we discovered that our included "continental breakfast" was in fact a room service breakfast delivered to the fancy dining table in our suite.

We had been warned (both by family members who had been there and the strange looks people in Edinburgh gave us when we told them where we were stopping) that Lockerbie was a tiny town without a lot to see.

I'm still not sure we were prepared to find the town so sleepy that the town square was covered in statues...of sheep. Other than a pretty church or two, it was, as expected,  just a quiet little town. We took off walking to see the visitor center, which was about half a mile outside of town. I learned a little bit more about my family history there, but mostly we both enjoyed the peaceful scenery after the hustle of Edinburgh.

A Not - so Whirlwind Tour of Edinburgh

When Patrick and I planned this trip, we both knew that there was a good chance that we wouldn't feel like we had enough time in any city. It took us all of 18 hours in Edinburgh to see just how true that was.

We had a list of things we wanted to do or see, from the traditional visit to the castle, several different museums and Scotch tastings to hikes to a nearby park with great views. On Sunday, we planned on visiting the castle, touring the botanical gardens and National Museum, going on a Scotch "tour" with tastings and information about making Scotch, and finishing off with dinner at our fun, fancy hotel. A whirlwind tour, but one that would give us a taste of all the things we had heard were great about Edinburgh.

What did we actually do? ...we slept in (which was wonderful after spending most of the "night" on the plain and wandering through Edinburgh). We had a long, leisurely breakfast where I discovered that Scotland makes some amazing pastries. And then, we spent 5 hours wandering through the (really cool) castle. By the time we left, the museum, botanical gardens and Scotch tour were all closed. Since we couldn't leave Scotland without drinking some Scotch, we walked the few extra steps to the whiskey bar next door to our hotel (the one where the walls were lined with the 3300 different varieties of Scotch they offered) and enjoyed a tasting menu there instead. I'm sure based on its location that it was a tourist bar; but considering their selection we didn't care and enjoyed ourselves plenty for the few hours until our late dinner.

And finally, dinner and relaxing. This was our first "splurge" night of the vacation as we stayed in an amazing gothic suite at the Witchery.

Dinner was at the Witchery's restaurant, and was equally beautiful and inviting. I'll spare you the food photos, but it was amazing and by the time we were done (with both dinner and the bottle of champagne in our room!) it was far too late for our early morning, yet again. Next will be our last full day in the UK already!

Sorry for the Technical Difficulties

We learned on our first day that between some quirks of Blogger and of what each one of our phones would and wouldn't do, posting in the half hour or so that we had Internet might be difficult. Posts might come in batches of 4 or 5, but it looks like we might finally have the quirks worked out!

We Made it - All the Things I Missed Before

Considering the state of my brain on very little sleep and the depressing number of times I "lost" my camera or map in my pocket on Saturday, I'm pretty surprised that I kept it together enough to post anything but jibberish at 10 pm that night. (Moms-that one was for you, so you'd know that we didn't die!) Now that I'm a little more put together, here's a few of the more interesting highlights that we somehow stayed awake for that day.

We'd read that to get a great view of the city, you should climb a hill called Arthur's seat, which overlooks all of Old Town. At the time we arrived at our hotel, I had completely forgotten about this (as well as where the map and my cardigan had gone - for those of you who think I'm discombobulated and entertaining at 7 am, you should see me on hour 26 of not sleeping). When the concierge recommended that we go to a park a few miles away with a great view (and gave us a new map, which only Patrick was allowed to hold by now), we thought it was a great idea and took off.

It WAS a great walk, and we wandered by some fun things on the way.

The last bit was a little steep, but it felt great after so much sitting down.

And at the top, looking out over the scenery in 360 degrees, I noticed Arthur's Seat, dead ahead. Also-and I realize this may be difficult to see from the photos-WAY steeper, further away and more intimidating than the short little path lined with fun monuments and gardens that we had just climbed up. Coming from Minnesota where things are pretty much flat, this counts as a bit more than just a "hill" for me! We happily skipped it and instead enjoyed our easy view before heading off for a bit more exploring.

I'm pretty certain that its a "only in Scotland" moment to wander into a free concert by a band consisting of a drummer, electric guitarist and bagpiper. (Perhaps even more unusual, they were pretty good, with as unique a sound as I think you could expect from that combination!)

And finally, after about 5 miles of walking, a lot of glasses of wine (did I mention that we somehow ended up on a flight where all the liquor was complimentary? Too bad it didn't help us sleep like we hoped for), and eventually finding almost everything I lost, we got to fall asleep to get ready for the long list of things we'd found to do the next day.

We Made It!!

Just a quick note to say that we are safe and sound in Edinburgh at the end of our either a whirlwind Saturday or, from our perspective, a remarkably long Friday. (Turns out 9 years is a long time. Last time I flew across the Atlantic I was 21-and staying up for 34 hours straight was a whole lot less painful!) We're both plenty jet lagged and didn't get much (or any) sleep on the plane, but that didn't stop us from spending our day exploring Edinburgh.
We got in around  1 pm and immediately took off to keep ourselves awake by walking continually. While we haven't done any tours or been inside much, we walked around most of the old city, saw quite a few beautiful old monuments and have a great idea of what's on the top of the list for tomorrow - our second and last day in Edinburgh.

I hope to have some more details tomorrow: but I've now been up for 35 hours or so and that's more than enough for me!