Well everyone, my time in Scotland is officially over tomorrow. This will be my last post...can't wait to see everyone soon!
Friday, 27 May 2011
Last couple explorations in Edinburgh...
In the last couple weeks, friends and I made sure to visit the sites of Edinburgh that we had not yet seen. Right on one of the most popular tourists streets in the city stands the Sir Walter Scott Monument, which reaches 287 steps high and provides an amazing 360 degree view of the city. For just a few pounds we hiked up to the top on a nice sunny (bounced back and forth from overcast) day!
Later that week we visited the Palace of Holyrood located at the end of the Royal Mile. The Palace is the residence of the Queen of England when she comes to visit Edinburgh. Right out back we walked through the old Abbey and the beautiful Palace Gardens.
Just recently before everyone started to leave for home, a few of us hiked up Arthur Seat one last time. Another day we walked down to the Botanical Gardens and spent a couple hours just relaxing and enjoying the weather. We also checked out the National Gallery of Scotland...didn't spend too much time in there though; we realized we were sick of seeing so much art after all the galleries and museums we visited over spring break.
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| Sir Walter Scott Monument |
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| View of Edinburgh Castle |
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| Princes Street |
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| Princes Street Gardens |
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| View of Arthur Seat |
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| View of Calton Hill |
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| Old Abbey |
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| Palace Gardens |
Day trip to St. Andrews and a round of golf!
About a month ago a bunch of us went on a day trip to St. Andrews through our study abroad program. St. Andrews is known for being the home of golf, and it is simply just that. The town is made up of only three main streets, all of which lead to the golf course. We visited the old cathedral and castle, grabbed some pub lunch and called it a day!
Two days ago Chris and I went back to St. Andrews to finally play some golf! It was by far the nicest course I've ever played...just being there and knowing we were playing at St. Andrews made it all that more exciting. We had hoped to play the famous Old Course, but that required a long time advanced booking and a legitimate handicap score...so we "settled" (still amazing) for the Jubilee Course. We still walked around some of the Old Course and checked it out, but honestly the Jubilee and other courses are just as well kept and are very challenging, it is simply the history and name of the Old Course that makes it so famous. It was typical Scottish weather but fortunately the rain held off and it was just overcast...and to my surprise the wind was not as bad as I was expecting, on the back nine it picked up a little. The day before Chris and I had played a course in Edinburgh to prepare for St. Andrews, and that was the windiest weather I have ever played in, it was incredible.
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| St. Andrews Cathedral |
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| St. Andrews Castle |
Two days ago Chris and I went back to St. Andrews to finally play some golf! It was by far the nicest course I've ever played...just being there and knowing we were playing at St. Andrews made it all that more exciting. We had hoped to play the famous Old Course, but that required a long time advanced booking and a legitimate handicap score...so we "settled" (still amazing) for the Jubilee Course. We still walked around some of the Old Course and checked it out, but honestly the Jubilee and other courses are just as well kept and are very challenging, it is simply the history and name of the Old Course that makes it so famous. It was typical Scottish weather but fortunately the rain held off and it was just overcast...and to my surprise the wind was not as bad as I was expecting, on the back nine it picked up a little. The day before Chris and I had played a course in Edinburgh to prepare for St. Andrews, and that was the windiest weather I have ever played in, it was incredible.
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| The 18th hole on the Old Course |
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| British Golf Museum, behind the 1st tee of the Old Course |
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| The famous Swilcan Bridge on the Old Course |
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| We got used to spending time in the bunkers... |
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| Tee box on the coast |
Scaling the Berlin Wall!
Our last stop on our spring break was Berlin, Germany. It was definitely one of my favorite cities...just so much history all related with WWII...crazy to think of everything that went on. We took another bike tour in Berlin as we did in Paris...the perfect way to see the whole city in reasonable time. Our last full day in Berlin we rented bikes and traveled by train to Potsdam, just outside of Berlin, and biked around the city seeing all the different palaces from decades ago!
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| TV Tower in Alexanderplatz |
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| Bebelplatz, site of the Nazi book burning in 1933 |
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| French Cathedral |
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| German Cathedral |
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| Checkpoint Charlie |
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| Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe |
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| Brandenburg Gate |
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| Victory Column |
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| Parliament |
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| Berlin Cathedral |
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| Part of the Berlin Wall |
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| Part of the Berlin Wall |
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| Part of the Berlin Wall |
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| St. Nikolai Church |
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| Brandenburger Tor |
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| Chinese House |
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| Orangery Palace |
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| Schloss Sanssouci |
Czech this out!
From Vienna we traveled to the Czech Republic and spent a couple days in Prague. It appears more of an older style city (Gothic), very nice place to visit, so much to see! Just in time for the Easter holiday they had a couple big Easter markets with amazing foods...some delicious white chocolate covered strawberries and bananas. By far, even tougher than German, the language of Czech spoken in Prague was the most difficult to understand.
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| Old Town Hall & Astronomical Clock |
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| Easter market in Old Town Sq. |
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| Powder Gate |
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| Church of Our Lady Before Tyn |
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| Wolf...? |
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| White chocolate banana! |
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| Prague Castle |
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| St. Vitus Cathedral |
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| Prague |
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