The same bus all day, what a luxury! We got going with and early start at 7:30 and headed north towards Edinburgh, stopping at Alnwick Castle on the way. We had about 4.5 hours of driving ahead of us, but a stop for snacks and then the castle broke it up nicely, and we arrived in Edinburgh at our restaurant by 5 pm.
Alnwick Castle has a deep and significant history all on its own, but most of our travellers only knew it from its use as a location for some of the Harry Potter movies.
The castle is owned by by a real Duke, and his family still lives there, only not in the summer when they open it for tourists. In addition to Harry Potter, shows like Downton Abbey and Black Adder have been filmed there, along with movies like Elizabeth and Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves. They have lots of activities in addition to the tours you can take, but the favourite was broomstick training on the spot where they filmed the broomstick training scenes in Harry Potter.
Our group might not be the target audience, but lots of them signed up (including Mr. Krahn) and had a blast. The Professor in charge lines the group up, then chooses the volunteer (lucky Ariel), and then proceeds to teach them hot to grab their broomstick, making sure they make plenty of mistakes for plenty of laughs. I think Ariel was ready just to grab the stick out of his hands after all of his confusing instructions.
Students then learned to mount their brooms, make broom engine noises (cows?), and then follow commands, including bunny hops. At the conclusion the class graduates and gets to take some pictures of them flying on their brooms.
The castle was also a significant shopping stop (Aaron and Shawn), which I'm hoping to show you a picture of soon.
After Alnwick we headed to Edinburgh, catching some amazing views of the coast and the North Sea, and then heading into Edinburgh.
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