Wednesday 1 June 2005

A new month and today we're off from Edinburgh to York.

This morning we drove into Edinburgh for breakfast at Starbucks. After breakfast I attempted to drive from New Town (north side of Edinburgh) to the Old Town but it took almost half an hour. Traffic wasn't the problem, it was that every street seemed to be either closed, a bus lane or non-existant. Eventually I found the way and we headed south.

On the way south we stopped outside Borthwick Castle, where Mary Queen of Scots fled after her husband was murdered (along with the prime suspect) and Chaucey searched for a letterbox left near by.

We continued south to the border, where the hill we crossed at the border was shrouded in fog and headed south in heavy rain. (Yes, the northern summer started today.) We stopped for lunch in Newcastle-on-Tyne and then drove onto York.

York is a very beautiful city, lots of medievil buildings. We went on a walking ghost tour after dinner and passed a castle in which 150 Jews were slaughtered in the 12th Century, and a church where it is reputed that two Jews fled and hid in a room that was only discovered after a girl regressed to a previous life under hypnosis.

The tour went down many snickleways (alleyways) where you have to hide from the bagust (werewolf) which eats unaware people. Most of the gates (streets) are paved and closed to traffic for most of the day but are open at night.

After the walk we headed back to the hotel and listened to the nightclub accross the road until we drifted off to sleep.