March 23, 2012

Arthur's Seat

                So a veeeery bright and early morning with only about an hour and a half sleep for all of us.  But, we rallied and set off in high spirits.  There was a thick fog covering the mountain and we could only see about three feet in front of us and it was still pretty early and dark.  We had printed out directions at the hotel, but nothing was marked and there weren’t signs anywhere telling us which trail to take.  We took the first trail we found that looked like it would lead us straight to the top.  It was basically a vertical climb and we honestly had to stop every two minutes to catch our breath.  That’s when I started thinking maybe we should have kept walking around the base of the mountain to try to find an easier hike.  But we kept pressing forward until the path started to decline.  We wondered if we had taken the wrong path or if we had to take a different path along the way.  We found a small sign with a terrible map and tried to map out our way to get to Arthur’s Seat.  We hiked all over, climbing up mountains and scaling hills for a good hour until we got to the top of a very high mountain.  We decided to pull our losses and decreed that this was Arthur’s Seat. 

This is all we could basically see the whole morning.

                Our original plan had been to leave early enough to catch the sun rise atop Arthur’s Seat but the fog basically ruined that.  The fog masked Edinburgh and the sunrise.  We sat on top of the mountain, watching the city and waiting for those few moments when the fog would temporarily clear over the city. 

A nice view of Edinburgh

When the fog cleared

We were soaking wet from the fog and finally decided to head back.  On the way down the mountain I spotted a wallet and passport laying a ways off from the trail.  It belonged to a British girl and was dripping wet from being out in the fog.  I took it to a police station on the way back and really hoped that the girl who lost it wasn’t lying dead somewhere on the mountain after having dropped her wallet and passport.  Also, why would she have her passport with her hiking Arthur’s Seat?  She was born in Edinburgh, so she wouldn’t need to have it with her on a normal day.  Luckily I just got a letter from the Edinburgh Police Department that the wallet and passport has been “claimed by the loser”.  Well, I’m glad to help out a fellow “loser”.

We spent the rest of the day around Edinburgh doing some souvenir shopping.  I got a great little silver Celtic necklace and then it was…back on the glorious bus.  

During our souvenir shopping we took a picture next to the
Ghost Tour sign.  We were too frightened to do it the previous night.

Four hours later we were at Fountain’s Abbey, founded by Benedictine monks and now basically in ruins.  We only had one hour to explore the abbey because we had hit bad traffic.  So we quickly ran through the ruined abbey and through part of the extensive grounds.  I would have loved to have seen more, because the brochure I picked up described some great gardens, but we had a dumb old schedule to stick to and after an hour it was back on the stupid bus.  I’m never getting on another bus again after this trip.  Never.

Chillin in an ancient fountain

A short hour later we were in York and were set free to explore and go get dinner.  It was my friend Becca’s Birthday so we went to O’Neils, an Irish pub I’ve gone to in Wales and England, to celebrate.  It was a much needed break from that dreary old bus.  Dinner was great and the company was even better.

Becca's (second over on the left) 20th Birthday