Four days in Edinburgh

Back when I was in Korea, at the turn of the new year into 2012, I'd already made the resolution to travel to Scotland with my mum. It took a while for us to organise it, and actually go, but this February we stuck to our word and spent a long weekend in Edinburgh. Blessed with awesome weather, we had an amazing time. Edinburgh is an incredible city. Just as everyone I'd spoken to before we went had said, we really enjoyed those few days. Obviously it would have made a difference if the weather had been drab and rainy, but even so I can't wait to head up to Scotland again. All these years living only a few hours away and I'd never ventured there before!

As we only had a few days we had decided beforehand what we wanted to see and do. Our trip coincided with an exhibition on David Livingstone, the famous Scottish missionary and explorer. We have a connection with Livingstone, as he lived and studied at my mum's church for a few months before heading off to Africa. They still have one of his walking sticks on display. On one of our days we decided to take one of the bus tours around the city. I've always found these to be such a great way to see the main sights, and get an idea of the places you want to see more of when visiting a place. They are quite expensive but you get a general guided tour and it's a good way to see more of the city if you don't have much time in one place. Other days we spent walking up to Arthur's Seat and exploring Edinburgh Castle and Hollyrood House. 

I'm so glad I've finally visited scotland, and cannot wait for the next trip up north.

A brave woman standing up for what she believes in. A woman after my own heart!

:: This is a plaque, on the floor of St Giles Cathedral is dedicated to Jenny Geddes who was a Scottish market-trader in Edinburgh, who is alleged to have thrown her stool at the head of the minister in St Giles' Cathedral in objection to the first public use of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer in ::

Due to the window tax imposed by William III, many windows were bricked up to save on money. There are loads of examples of this all over England. Here in Scotland, instead of just bricking up the hole, they pained over the area to make it look as though the window was still there. Ingenious!

A young Queen Victoria

The hotel where Agatha Christie spent her honeymoon

Mum and I outside Hollyrood House

The Mackenzie Tomb

:: There is a myth that a poltergeist lives in this tomb. I was not brave enough to shout through the keyhole (the way to antagonise the ghost). I took this picture and fled! ::

Greyfriars Bobby's grave, loaded with sticks for him to fetch.

Auld Jock's grave, where Bobby held his vigil for 14 years.

William Smellie's grave; the editor of the first Encyclopaedia Britannica 

Bobby's statue, just outside the graveyard.

The Livingstone Exhibition in the National Museum of Scotland

Beautiful Architechture in Warsaw

The train from Kiev to Warsaw was an interesting one. We shared our three berth cabin with Yuri, an old(ish) guy, originally from Belarus but now living in Canada. Together we watched a movie he had on his laptop called 'Across the Universe'. A musical based in America during the Vietnam war using songs from the Beatles. I had never heard of the film, and enjoyed watching it, despite Yuri constantly revealing what was going to happen, right before the action on screen.

Warsaw was a fantastic city to walk around. The architecture in the old town was spectacular, red brick and lines of terraced houses or grand government buildings. Cobbled streets, tiny alleyways and ivy clad houses. I had a lovely time wandering around the streets, taking far too many pictures and learning about Poland's dark and somber history. Our days in Warsaw were of gorgeous weather and delicious food. On our first full day we visited the extremely hi-tech Chopin museum and small but absorbing Marie Curie exhibit; housed within her birth home. Two rooms of pictures showing her life through pictures, and a few interesting personal belongings. I thoroughly enjoyed our short stay in Poland's capital. This was my second visit to the country; having visited Krakow on my inter-railing trip in 2007. I was charmed by Warsaw, saddened by its devastating modern history, seduced with its colourful and quaint buildings and delighted with the cobbles under foot after two years in the futuristic and fast paced Oriental hub of Seoul.

The Church of the Visitandines

The Frederick Chopin Museum

This is how I imagined the Ministry of Truth in Orwell's 1984 would look.

The old town square

The Barbican

The only building that survived WWII bombing

If you watch til the end you'll catch a glimpse of Yuri;

The Lavra

A trip to Kiev is not complete without a visit to the Lavra. This is a Christian Monastery, founded in 1051, as a cave monastery and still active today. The site includes a state museum and various churches. The most famous attraction is the cave burial site where you can wander through the cave tunnels with a candle. Along the narrow underground corridors are sarcophagi housing the remains of various Monks and religious people. We walked along behind a tour group holding out the candle as our only light. The remains are covered by cloths inside the glass topped coffins. It's an incredibly atmospheric experience, and only a little bit creepy. The Lavra is a UNESCO world heritage site, visited by thousands of people every year. The churches are spectacular, but having spent the past three weeks walking among spirituality through Siberia, we suffered church fatigue when we arrived in the Lavra. After experiencing the catacombs, we were ready to make our way back to the city centre. An unfortunate side effect to slow, over-land travel is that the landscape, culture and history of each place doesn't massively change. The first Church we encountered in Listvyanka, after two years of temples, was a breath of fresh air for me. But by the time we reached the Lavra and our 27th house of God, I was happy to forgo entering any more than one building. This is no reflection on the architecture or history here, purely the fatigue of this train weary traveller! 

A lovely evening

I've been having trouble lately attaching photos to posts, and instead of investigating the problem and finding a solution, I've been lazy.

But tonight, I had a lovely walk along the south bank in London, just me, my music and my camera. It has invigorated me and prompted me to get back to blogging! Since I don't have my camera cord with me, while I live in London working for this month, I've posted a few sneek peek pictures taken with my iPhone. And I solemnly swear to get back to blogging at the end of January!

Exploring Kyiv

Initially Kiev was only on the list of cities we were visiting because it was a way to take the trip across Europe to London bypassing Belarus where a visa (even for a straight through transit) costs £100. While doing research and planning for our trip I noted down a post on Travel belles with a recommended tour for the city. After reading this I was more enthusiastic about our visit. Our first day didn't pan out too well, after our train arrived very early in the morning I followed the hostel directions, which were at first very good. Until we couldn't find the correct road to turn down, and then walked past the hostel entrance at least 3 times ('You'll see our sign' - no we won't because it's incredibly small!) The rest of our first day had terrible weather so this gave us time to relax and catch up on reading, sleeping and blogging. 

Day two was a lot more productive. We followed the travel belles advice, but in reverse as we were staying on Andrew's Decent. In Kiev we saw so many weddings! Every place we visited (even the War Memorial) had bridal parties taking photos. At one place there were four weddings all next to each other! We could have seen this as a sign, but then we're both single so no wedding bells for us in the near future!

Image by: Wolfgang Woessner/MAK

During the Travel Belles tour we made a stop, as suggested, at the Pinchuk Art Gallery (we also had some lunch here which was delicious!) The main exhibitor when we visited was Anish Kapoor. I have since discovered he is the artist/architect behind the big Bean in Chicago and the ugly construction outside the Olympic Stadium in Stratford. His show in Kiev was weird. The piece that most affected me was called 'Shooting into a Corner' and was a whole room, filled mostly with a huge cannon that has shot out vibrant red thick paint (which looks like blood) The image here doesn't show exactly what we saw as we were in a small room with a low ceiling so the paint was closer and more splattered. Most of Anish Kapoor's pieces were a little too wacky for me. But further into the gallery were other displays from various artists. Our very own Damien Hirst made an appearance and his was quite thought provoking. A balloon floating over a fan above sharp knives 'A History of Pain'. The last sculpture I can remember (As I write this three months after visiting) were (bordering on pornographic) sculptures from Japanese Artist; Takashi Murakami (Image Below). Overall Pinchuk was a worthwhile visit. It was free and whether you enjoy the art on display or not, it certainly makes you think and leave a lasting impression.

Takashi Murakami

Damien Hirst. Images from: Pinchuk Art Gallery

 Kiev city was a great place to walk around, easily accessible on foot (although there are a few hills and lots of steps). Andrew's Decent and the surrounding streets have some great stalls, I bought some of my favourite souvenirs from Kiev (a photo of St Andrew's Church from an elderly man standing away from the rest of the stalls and wearing milk bottle glasses and an etching of Lenin in London). The hostel -Dream House Hostel and Bar- was great; perfectly set up for backpackers - just look out for a small sign on A4 paper. It was not somewhere I was desperate to visit, but it is now on my list of cities (and countries) to re-visit!

St Andrew's Church

This was only the second couple we saw at our first destination of the day; Andrew's Decent.

The entrance to St Michael's Cathedral

St Michael's Cathedral. You can buy Cherry Honey Mead outside, but I wouldn't recommend it!

St Sophia's Church

Hundreds of steps to the top of St Sophia's Bell Tower.

Kiev University

And our video with all the weddings;