Day 5: Hadrian's wall and lots of Roman things

Wednesday dawned not so bright and sunny as grey and dismal. I was feeling the effects of the dampness, as I had cleverly forgotten to pack a fleece jacket and was reduced to wearing my new Puma sweatshirt underneath my trusty new raincoat. I had thought that a raincoat would serve me well, but, as it turned out, I would have done better with something warmer on these first few days. 

It was a short drive to Vindolanda and the Roman Army Museum. Vindolanda is the site of five wooden Roman forts and several stone forts that were built on top of each other after the former ones were demolished. It is situated just south of Hadrian's Wall. The first fort was built around AD 85 and the settlement remained in use for about 400 years. Its main purpose was to keep the local rebels under control and, of course, to keep the unruly Scots out of England.

Vindolanda is a working archaeological site and there have been thousands of unique artifacts found there due to the anoxic (lacking in oxygen) and waterlogged condition of the ground. Imagine leather shoes surviving in ground for almost 2,000 years! Most importantly, perhaps, are the Vindolanda tablets, communications between Roman officers that were written on thin slivers of postcard-sized wood. Over 400 tablets have been found so far and the writing on them provides valuable information about the nature of life on the Roman frontier.

I also forgot to pack a warm hat, but discovered that I could wrap my new Wilson tartan scarf around my head and tie it in the back. It was just the ticket. My mother would be proud.

In the way of things in historical England, there is a working farm just across the wall from the dig.

These photos give an idea of the size of the area.

I have pretty much fired myself from being photographer when we travel. My camera did not take good photos on this grey day, but, as you can see, Jeff was taking some good ones.

I love English robins. This one reminds me of the old nursery rhyme that must be peculiar to British children because none of my friends seem to know it.

The North wind doth blow and we shall have snow,

And what will poor robin do then, poor thing?

He'll sit in a barn and keep himself warm,

And hide his head under his wing, poor thing.

We walked down a long and winding path the the Roman Army Museum, where there were mannequins. And lots of wonderfully interesting things that have been found at Vindolanda.

Then we drove up the road a wee bit and walked, up a (steep) hill of course, to a section of Hadrian's Wall. Don't you love how the farmers just bisected the wall with their own newer one? I suppose when you live with history like this it becomes commonplace.

I kept imagining how glorious this view would have been in sunlight.

It is quite amazing to think that this wall, which was 80 miles long in its time, is almost 2,000 years old. And we walked on it.

It started to rain, so we skedaddled back down the hill and drove on.

And then we had a satnav moment.
As we came out of the narrow lane from the wall, the satnav said to turn left. It didn't seem right to us, but at this point we still thought that it was God and knew a thing or two better than us, so I turned left. The road became a narrow lane, just wide enough for our car, that wended its way through farmland. In fact, there were cows and sheep on the road. We kept thinking that it must be some clever shortcut, until we realised that the graphic on the satnav screen that showed our next move was a U-turn, two miles down the road.
Call us outraged, or call us stupid, but I actually drove those two miles, just to see if there was anything interesting along the way.
There wasn't.
We finally got back on the main road and the satnav was unfazed and unrepentant.
We drove through the Pennines to get to Darlington, our stop for the night. I was looking forward to the Pennines, but without sunshine everything looked a little dreary, so we just forged on until we reached our billet for the night. And it was a most gorgeous house that was owned by a very obsessive-compulsive and lovely lady schoolteacher. I have never seen a kitchen so immaculately organized in my entire life. We walked to the local pub for dinner and then settled in for the night.

Day 4: Hills, castles, and terrorism

Tuesday morning, slightly brighter and earlier than usual, we packed our bags and left them in the flat while we put on our walking shoes and headed back through Holyrood Park, past the Queen's residence, Scottish Parliament, and up the Royal Mile.

The Parliament Buildings are very controversial, having cost over 8 times the initial estimate and taking three years longer than expected. They cost over 400 million pounds. The design is also quite controversial; Scottish Parliament placed fourth in a 2008 poll on what UK buildings people would like to see demolished! I kind of agree. 

Parliament is at the base of the Royal Mile, which is lined with shops that are a real tourist trap. 

This is the Parliament building from around the corner.

The wall on this side has quotes scattered on it. They are all from Scottish poets or other famous people.

Speaking of Scottish poets, this is Robert Fergusson, being pitifully mimicked by me. The poor wee lad died in a lunatic asylum when he was only 24, but he was very prolific when alive. 

I love the way people here express their displeasure with the establishment. This roughly knitted afghan says it all.

 We wondered what it was all about, but then we walked across the street and saw this: a building has been demolished, leaving only the facade. 

Up, up, and up some more. 

And we were finally at the top, having bravely ignored all of the siren calls of the shops.

There were, unfortunately, many tourist groups, but we did a fine job of avoiding them for the most part. 

There's something about a cannon that is very appealing.

Jeff has no pretensions to being anything other than an American tourist, and he asked this gentleman if he could take his photo. Sometimes I like to pretend that I'm not with him.

Edinburgh Castle has lots of smaller museums on the grounds. My favourite was the dungeons. They have housed many different kinds of prisoners, and among them were Americans and their allies from the Revolutionary War. They also housed prisoners from the Napoleanic Wars and the Seven Years War. The prisoners were treated fairly well, except for the Americans, who received less rations and supplies than anyone else and were kept longer. The prisoners became quite ingenious at making things out of unusual materials, even forging bank notes by making dies out of wood and bone from their meat rations.

These boxes were made of straw.

They slept in hammocks or on pallets.

Some of the best things in museums are the mannequins.

Oh wait! That last one is real! He was just down the hill from the castle, so we contributed to his pot of cash and sat down to listen to him. He was raking in the money, I estimated about 100 pounds an hour. Not a bad gig. I asked him if he took requests and he nodded, so he played Scottish Soldier for me. He didn't exactly play with passion, but beggars can't be choosers. 

Now here it is with passion. 

On the way down the Mile, we found a fudge shop that makes dairy-free fudge that tastes as good as the creamy kind, so we bought some for the d/f grandkids. I forgot to wrap it in a plastic bag until over a week later, so hopefully it will still be delicious. 

The Royal Mile is split into two one-way streets, so you only have to worry about cars and buses going in one direction. We did a bit of shopping on the way down, but most of the merchandise was made in China, so I didn't get too excited about it.

We walked back to the flat and picked up our bags and headed out of Edinburgh to Rosslyn Chapel, which, according to Dan Brown in The DaVinci Code, was the supposed home of the Holy Grail. Or was it? This stop was for Jeff, as he was fascinated with the topic, but he was disappointed and decided, after listening to a talk in the chapel, that it was all a bunch of hype. Which, you know, I could have told him.

And on we drove. The stop at Roslin was somewhat spontaneous, so our route to Haltwhistle, our next bed for the night, was a bit of an unknown and the satnav was in charge.

In the early evening we decided to find a place to eat, so got off the highway at a town called Lockerbie. We ate a rather gourmet meal at a pub and got talking to an elderly couple next to us. They said, Oh, you must stop at the Garden of Remembrance. 
Okay, we said, totally clueless, we have time for that. We followed their directions and as we drew closer it dawned on us.
Oh.
THAT Lockerbie.

And I wiped a tear or two away as I thought of all of those lives cut short by hatred.

And we drove on again, much sobered. After we settled down for the night, I consulted my friend Google. She knows everything. I found this website, that is very eye-opening about the effects of the disaster on the township. After all of the media spotlight went away and the rest of the world carried on with their lives, Lockerbie was left to deal with the aftermath, and it was terrible. I think they deserve a few minutes of our time today.