Well, I think it was a mixed blessing. We started in London, then went to York, then to Edinburgh, then back to London. Too much in only one week. Paris last fall was an easier trip because we had only one "home."
Nevertheless, Phoebe was a trooper, and her pictures (This girl has a gift!) tell our story. I've stolen a number of them and present them here without her permission.
London was a bust because of the congestion and general "greyness." Even Harrod's and Buckingham Palace disappointed. Highlights were drinks and dinner in a real English pub (note Phoebe's drink-in-hand), meetingTatiana Sendzimir before seeing Six at the Vaudeville Theatre, and the ferris wheel, where we got stuck at the summit! (Please note the rain: we ended up getting absolutely drenched once the ride eventually returned to earth!) Phoebe also liked the Chelsea area, which is posh and terrribly appealing (if you can afford it). We also got to see the Crown Jewels at the Tower of London (don't bother going - the photos are just as good). And, not to be overlooked, was the hotel that lookslike a castle and that was within spitting distance of where we actually stayed, and where we could have had I been willing to pay more than $400 a night, which I wasn't.
We both loved York because it had few tourists and more the feeling of a village than a city. Our accommodations were far more comfortable than the closet we had shared in London, and the Viking Museum had such lifelike mannequins that they actually scared Phoebe!
Edinburgh the city was a disappointment because of the number of tourists (even though July is not yet high season!) and the fact that the castle itself is fairly small and full of gift shops. In the 1960s, when I had been in Edinburgh, I had not visited the castle, instead sitting on the grass in Princess Gardens, looking up at that incredible edifice and imagining I could see dragons coming around the bend. I must admit that discovering by chance the Scottish Geneaology Society resulted in several pages of discovery. And then, Phoebe's adventure with a ghost tour, during which she proved herself brave enough to touch the femur of a dead child and we both witnessed bones coming up through the dirt of graveyards, brought a smile to our lips and a twinkles to our eyes.

The day was saved by the arrival of Jonathan Young, a distant Scottish relative that I had discovered through my geneological research of the Grierson family. Jonathan, an Edinburgh native and father of three boys in their thirties, spent an entire day taking us to Stirling Castle (fabulous!) and Culross, a restored 17th-century village and home of Sir George Bruce, who invented both undersea coal mining and sea salt harvesting!
I'm really looking forward to more trips with my grandkids. We have to pack it in while we can, for differing reasons. Learning to explore and learn is so very important.
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