We showed up at the National Museum to join a group, guided tour and we were the only people that showed up. Angus Templeton was our guide and he is part Scottish and part Australian. He is an actor by desire and a guide by need but he was excellent. He has an amazing memory that would not stop. He was able to answer every question with what seemed like credible responses. Once again I took lots of pictures some of which are below.
Sooz signed us up for a Harry Potter tour that started at 4:30 pm so we killed a couple of hours over lunch at the museum planning our next few days in Scotland. Tomorrow we will jump on the bike and head towards Loch Ness and stay in a hotel northeast of the Loch. Monday we will head towards Inverness. Unfortunately it looks like our beautiful weather is going to turn to more typical cold and rainy soon. It's been a pleasant run. It seems like Tropical Storm Humberto is following us here and may impact our weather.
The Harry Potter tour was a lot of fun and brought us to parts of the City that I'm sure we would not have seen otherwise. J.K. Rowling' s real name is Joanne Rowling but the publishers thought they should use a neutral name so that boys would not be turned off by a female author's name. She was very poor when she started writing the first HP book and is now a billionaire. The City of Edinburgh gave her an $8,000 pound grant in 1997 so that she could focus solely on writing the second HP book. She has since repaid that loan many times over. More pictures below.
 |
| If you look closely you can see J.K. Row's hand imprints and name with the Award of Edinburgh which she received |
 |
| A street that was an inspiration to J.K. |
 |
| The most famous statue in Edinburgh of the most famous and loyal dog in in Edinburgh named Greyfriar Bobby which JK turned into Dobby |
 |
| Entrance to the Greyfriar Cemetery where JK found some names for her characters |
 |
| Part of the cemetery |
 |
| More name inspiration |
 |
| Nice street view. Can you find Greyfriar Bobby's statue? |
 |
| Where JK wrote several of her books |
 |
| Our HP tour guide |
 |
| Our National Museum guide |
 |
| Replica of Mary Queen of Scots tomb cover |
 |
| Dolly the sheep, the first cloned animal |
 |
| Entrance area of the National Museum |
 |
| They were filming the next Fast and Furious movie so look for these two cars in a chase scene when the movie comes out |
 |
| Movie crew in one of the blocked off streets |
It looks like you guys are having a great time. The castle looked amazing! Any luck finding long lost relatives?
ReplyDeleteNot a lot of luck here. We may have a little more luck when we are in Ireland in a week or so.
Deletetoo much fun being had over there, t ;)
ReplyDelete