Loch Ness

We are in Inverness near the Loch Ness which is famous for it's monster. However, despite all the sightings, lots of people have been down in the Loch (which is 230 metres deep) and never found anything.
There is a Castle - Urquhart on the Loch. We visited this today. Like many castles we visit, it is only ruins.

While we were in Edinburgh, we visited Holyrood Palace which Queen Elizabeth still visits but only for a few days of the year.

Scotland is very wet. It's national flower is the Thistle which is a weed and there are a lot of distillaries brewing whisky.

 In a tombstone - perfect size

 Also trying it on for size

 Holyrood Castle

 A traditional scotsman playing the bagpipes

 Urquhart Castle on Loch Ness

 Loch Ness

The River Ness which becomes the Loch

Edinburgh

We are in Edinburgh. Edinburgh is in Scotland. There are loads of shops selling kilts but we don't see anyone wearing them. Years and years ago the Scots wore kilts in the clan tartan and they didn't wear anything underneath which would have been cold as it is usually cold and rainy here.
We visited Edinburgh castle where Mary, Queen of Scots lived. She was executed  (killed) by Elizabeth the 1st. She became Queen when she was 9 months old. We saw the Scottish crown jewels which they call the "Honours". The road leading to the castle is called the Royal Mile and at the other end is Holyrood Castle where the Queen sometimes stays.
Some of Edinburgh was built over the top of old Edinburgh and we went on a tour of the old city which is still there underneath the city. We went through Mary Kings Close and saw the old streets and some of the old houses. In one house, people leave toys for the ghost of a little girl who was abandoned there by her parents, maybe because she had the plague. The tour was a bit creepy as it is very dark down there.
Scotland had the plague, like England and Doctors who treated the sick work long leather coats, leather gloves and a mask like a raven to keep out the vapours.
We visited Camera Obscura which was fun. They show how to change your perception (the way you see things), using pinhole camera, 3D, mirrors and lights and mazes and other tricks. If you go to Scotland - visit the Camera Obscura.
We also visited the Brittannia which is the Queens old ship. It was OK.
We went in some plastic bubbles on water. It is really hard to stay up in the bubbles. So much fun.
And we visited the coffee shop where JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter.

Random photo of Edinburgh from mum's iPhone

 

Camera Obscura effects

 

Part of Edinburgh Castle

 

Where Harry Potter was written

 

Random photo again

 

The bubbles - our favourite

Below - the underground city

York

York is one of the oldest cities in England. Vikings settled in York and we went to Jorvik, the viking museum which has a replica of a viking village and lots of old relics from the vikings including the bottom of a house, their shoes, bowls, knives and some skeletons that had old battle wounds.
The streets are tiny and uneven and  the shop buildings are very old.
We saw where Guy Fawkes was born. He tried to blow up Parliament.
We saw Howard's Castle which was used to film an old TV show and is huge, with a man made lake and huge gardens.

Manchester

We are in Manchester. Manchester United are the best soccer team! We came to Manchester to see the Old Trafford which is their home ground stadium. The Old Trafford is the biggest stadium in England.
We toured the stadium and the Manchester United museum and went to the megastore which has lots of Man U uniforms and other stuff.
We also saw a play done on the water with fireworks. It was really cool!

Wales

We stayed at a small YHA hostel in Llandeusant (you say Thlan-thy-sant), a tiny village in Wales.  It is very green there, with lots of ruins of castles. We went to see Ceidwelly (kid-welly) Castle and they were having a medieval fair there. We spoke to Bob, the apothecary (like a chemist but in the olden days) who showed us leeches which were used to suck out blood.

We also went to Cardiff and saw the Dr Who Experience, which has an adventure part then an exhibit of all the monsters and costumes and information about 50 years of Dr Who.

We went to Swansea which was not very interesting and to The Mumbles which is supposed to be well known but we dont know what we were supposed to see.

Bath

We are in a Youth Hostel in Bath. We left London yesterday.  We drove to Windsor and walked through the Queens Palace there. We stroked a cat.
We drove to Oxford which has one of the oldest and best universities there.
We got lost on the motorways and drove around lots of the countryside looking for Bath, an old Roman town. It is famous for its Ancient roman Baths (like a swimming pool). We visited the baths and saw how the Romans relaxed.  The water comes up from a underground spring and it is very hot under there so the water in the baths is usually 46 degrees.

London stuff

So far in London we have seen the Tower, Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace (where the queen lives), Big Ben (which is not actually called Big Ben - that is the name of the bell inside it, the clock tower is actually called Elizabeth Tower!), the Aquarium, Harrods (where mum went mad), Hamleys Toy shop, St James' Palace which looks really ordinary, Piccadilly Circus (which is NOT a circus), Soho (which we liked because they have table tennis tables in the Square for people to relax with), the London Dungeons which is really cool and gory (more later), British Museum which never ends - we got trapped in there.  We have travelled on many double decker buses and in black cabs.  We went on the London Eye which was OK. We saw the Houses of Parliament, walked Oxord St, visited Sherlock Holmes' Baker Street (the house is not there anymore). We went on a sightseeing tour and saw Australia House which was used in the Harry Potter Movies as Gringott's Bank!  Our favourite was the London Dungeons where they showed us what London looked like in the old days. It stunk! People emptied their pee pots in the streets.  There was a plague carried by the fleas on rats but the people thought it might be carried by the cats or dogs, so they killed them all which meant more rats, and more plague. Until a fire started in a baker's shop which spread over 70% of London and wiped out the city and the plague! The baker was tried for treason for trying to put the fire out in his shop!  Other things in the Dungeon were all the old killers like Jack the Ripper who they never caught, all the people they tortured and killed by cutting off their heads, like Guy Fawkes who tried to blow up Parliament, Anne Boleyn who was married to a king and others. They also showed all the instruments of torture! The pictures are of Nelson's column (Nelson stopped Napoleon invading England), One of us in front of the Lion statues at Trafalgar Square and Westminster and BigBen (Elizabeth Tower).

London!

Arrived in London at lunchtime. Too full from all the horrible plane food to be hungry. I liked the TVs on the plane, lots of stuff to watch. We flew on an Airbus.
We took a black cab to the apartments but had to wait in the beast for our rooms.
Dad and me we went for a walk to Albert Hall, saw the national geographic museum and saw lots of red buses.