Friday, February 5, 2016

Honeymoon Part Four: Holyroodhouse Palace & Royal Botanical Garden

Here we are, at the end of our honeymoon story!

On the opposite end of the Royal Mile from Edinburgh Castle is Holyroodhouse Palace where the Queen stays while in the city. It was absolutely stunning, however, there were no cameras allowed inside the gates! I did get some pictures though
The palace
We took the audio tour that walked us through the ceremonial procession that the Queen takes when she arrives at the palace. We got to see so much historical stuff. They even had Queen Mary's bed still displayed in a glass case. We got to see a bunch of little knicknacks and some pretty monumental historical items, like Bonny Prince Charlie's sword and Robert the Bruce's skull.

The abbey
One thing I learned was that the abbey was actually there before the palace was. It was so cool to stand in the ruins of this super old building.
View of the abbey from the gardens
We were lucky enough to be there when they still allow you to walk through the gardens (they're closed from November through March or April). The views were absolutely breathtaking
And there are actually ruins of other buildings that were part of the abbey throughout, which you're not supposed to walk on, but some idiot decided to go tromping through the ruins to take pictures. Michael and I watched a security camera pan and stay right on him and eventually saw a security officer coming down the path to talk to the man.
Arthur's Seat
One thing I didn't know about Edinburgh is that it has 2 dormant volcanoes in the city. Arthur's Seat is one and on the opposite end is what Edinburgh Castle sits on. People were hiking up the mountain and one day I'd love to do that and see everything.

On our last day we decided to take a stroll through the Royal Botanical Gardens for fun

And there we are folks, the end of our amazing Scottish honeymoon! We both can't wait to go back and explore such an amazing country!
Slàinte Mhath!

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