Hello everybody. For this blog we start off in Edinburgh, where we met up with our friend Richard, who was our guide in Bhutan. He lives in Scotland, so he invited us to spend a few days with him while we were here.
On the first day, we went to visit two old castles, Chrichton Castle and Dirleton Castle, with Richard and his partner, Alan. They were great guides and taught us a few things about how they were built.
Chrichton Castle was built in the 16th century and Dirleton Castle was built in the 13th century, so they were both very different. First of all, Chrichton Castle was one of the only ones with a straight staircase. Almost all other castles had spiral staircases because that made it hard for attackers to fight with a sword when the staircase was narrow and constantly winding around. Castles were also built up on hills so that they could get a good view of everything around them and know if an enemy was coming their way. People living in castles always had to be worried about being attacked. Underneath all the windows they even had holes cut out called "gun" loops, which helped them fire at invaders from inside the castle (before guns, they would have used arrows).
One thing you should know about Scotland is that it has a lot of sheep and we were there in the middle of calving season, so as we drove around, we seemed to be constantly surrounded by sheep and their baby lambs. When we left Richard's to drive to Loch Ness, we kept ourselves quite entertained looking out the car windows at all the animals.
On the first day, we went to visit two old castles, Chrichton Castle and Dirleton Castle, with Richard and his partner, Alan. They were great guides and taught us a few things about how they were built.
Chrichton Castle was built in the 16th century and Dirleton Castle was built in the 13th century, so they were both very different. First of all, Chrichton Castle was one of the only ones with a straight staircase. Almost all other castles had spiral staircases because that made it hard for attackers to fight with a sword when the staircase was narrow and constantly winding around. Castles were also built up on hills so that they could get a good view of everything around them and know if an enemy was coming their way. People living in castles always had to be worried about being attacked. Underneath all the windows they even had holes cut out called "gun" loops, which helped them fire at invaders from inside the castle (before guns, they would have used arrows).One thing you should know about Scotland is that it has a lot of sheep and we were there in the middle of calving season, so as we drove around, we seemed to be constantly surrounded by sheep and their baby lambs. When we left Richard's to drive to Loch Ness, we kept ourselves quite entertained looking out the car windows at all the animals.
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