No walk in Edinburgh but a walk in York.

Monday 21/9/15
We were sad to leave Edinburgh as we could have done so many more things but we needed

to make tracks to see more of the country. I was keen to go for our mandatory walk before our drive and had suggested that Aurthor's Seat (an extinct volcano close to the city centre of Edinburgh ) may be the place to go. Our host Laura said it took about an our to climb the steep trail to get to the top. Unfortunately it was raining so we drove around it instead. I think secretly Rob was pretty happy with this outcome. Oops nearly forgot....before driving off we decided to visit the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. It

didn't open until 10am so we had to wait but it was well and truly worth it. Unfortunately we couldn't stay much more than an hour but the little we saw was fantastic. They had 7 floors of exhibits but we decided just concentrate on Scotland. We started on the bottom level where the displays were all about the early people from the Bronze and Iron

ages. Just amazing. We then jumped a couple of floors because we were running out of time and landed on a floor all about the start of the Industrial revolution in Scotland. We were so lucky because a fellow was operating 2 of the steam engines on display while we were there. Unfortunately we had to go but on our way out we saw the very impressive millennium clock. It was huge. If ever we go back to Edinburgh we would definitely spend at least a day at this free museum. We would thoroughly recommend it to any one who visits Edinburgh. From Edinburgh we drove to York. Our sat-nav took us both on main roads and little country roads which was good. We arrived in York and went to our accommodation. We were greeted at the door of another beautiful Victorian townhouse by Jane. She showed us to our room which is up in the attic with it's own bathroom. Very nice. Jane said that many people convert their attics like this in these buildings and that has been our experience while on this trip. We needed to do some washing and we asked Jane about a laundromat but she said we could use her washing machine and dryer which was very kind of her. While the washing was on we walked into the main part of the town. We were lucky again as Jane's house is only 10 minutes walk away. As we were walking we saw the very old walls of the old city still standing as well as an amazing cathedral. We visited a part of the town know as "the Shambles". Here the very old buildings from each side of the road are so close together that the rooftops almost seem like they are touching. We were  starting to feel hungry and then heard music coming from around the corner. There was a giant marquee set up with a food, beer, wine and music festival going on. We stopped here and had dinner and Rob tried a beer but this was a warm one!