Scotland Day 3

Today we went to a palace. Yes, a real live palace, I don’t think Azelie could have been more excited! 

The Palace of Holyrood House is still in use by the queen of England and is full of history of Scotland, well, the English side of things that is. I was so impressed with their audio tour options for kids, C and A could navigate them easily and were enthralled. Caidoc was especially pleased with being able to lead himself around and was astounded at the size of the dining room. Azelie saw a portrait of the queen and was surprised that, “she was so old. But that’s okay, she still does a good job running this place!” Hahah! 

We only have pictures of the outside since photography is not allowed on the inside. But I have to tell you, seeing Mary Queen of Scots room that she lived in for awhile was a TRIP! First of all, I almost died of claustrophobia going up her stairway, these people must have been Caidoc’s size. And her bed was bitty!! How did people this small build castles?! When you tour the palace you only see part of it naturally, the historical portraits, tapestries, carvings, and various special items such as a locket given to Mary by her second husband Darnley and a lock of Mary’s hair (they think). The rest of the palace is still in use by the queen and her family. It was pretty cool to walk up the grand staircase where many popes, presidents, and other officials have walked to have meetings with the queen, not to mention Mary queen of Scots herself!

The kids absolutely loved the tour and it really made it easy for Chris and I take it all in. Cosima slept in the Ergo the whole time.

Attached to the palace is the ruins of Holyrood Abbey. I find it sad it wasn’t kept up like the palace BUT I won’t go into that now. 

It. Was. Beautiful. On the audio tour your little screen does a live reconstruction of it, so you can see how much bigger it really was. It was totally gorgeous, still is actually. 

The palace has a family room, which is a interactive space for kids to play so we went there as well. 

After we finished that tour we went back for rest and lunch before starting off on another hike. 

Below Arther’s Seat is another hike called Salisbury Craig so we did that in the afternoon. It’s a much milder hike than Arther’s Seat but still had amazing views. At the foot of the path was a replica of an original well called St. Margaret’s Well.


We are getting all our mandatory hikes in before the rain starts in a day or two. I’m grateful it’s been this nice for so long! 

After our hike we went back to our Airbnb where I held down the fort while chris exchanged our rental car, the rental company gave us the wrong one. Check in tomorrow for one of our most exciting days yet- CASTLE DAY ! 

Ps. Please excuse all the spelling and grammar errors, as I am attempting to get each day down while it is still fresh in my mind and don’t have much time to edit. Time enough for that later!

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