dinburgh castle by night. This is a postcard of the fireworks at the end of the Edinburgh International Festival.

Princes Street Gardens in Summer. This is a postcard of the gardens below the castle. The gardens were a swamp/river until the late 1700's (I think) and then a lady suggested it be turned into a garden. (Full story to come.)

Scottish busker. They go all out here. Imagine dressing up in all that, just to play bagpipes for a few pounds and pennys! Not to mention standing in the freezing cold. Anyway, these guys come out a lot near the Festival. Cashing in I guess!

Postcard of the 10,000 pipers and drummers that marched through Princes St in August 2000, for the Edinburgh International Festival. What a noise!! Pipers and drummers from all over the world took part, and there were some interesting variations of Kilts and marches.

Outside our favourite Friday night restaurant, The Rutland Hotel. This is one of the great places to go and dine in the main street of Edinburgh, Princes St. As this restaurant is on the second floor of a pub, and located at the beginning of Princes St, you get a fantastic view of the whole street. We sit at the window on the level above the yellow painted street level.

Postcard of the castle and the Princes St gardens below, in Summer 2000. These gardens are great! In summer they have a merry-go-round and ice cream vans in there, and lots and lots of people, catching some rays of sun, while in winter they have an outdoor icerink, a ferris wheel and lots of other great things like German Christmas Markets and concerts.

This is our own picture of the other end of the Princes St Gardens. Also taken in Summer 2000. The gardens are in a valley, which has a big bridge to the left end of it, and it almost makes you think it should be a river, which infact it used to sort of be. If there's one thing Edinburgh lacks, it's a river through the centre of the city like most big cities have. But the gardens are certainly a beautiful place to hang out.

The present Queen of Brittain's residence when in Scotland, The Palace of Holyrood, from the entrance gate, at the foothills of The Craggs and Arthurs Seat.

This picture was taken peering in through the wrought iron gates of the Holyrood Palace. You can take tours through the Palace at certain times of the year, but we haven't done that yet.

Yves sunbaking on the beach. Oh no, it's a snowman. He's taking a nap in the snow.. crazy. I think I'll throw a snowball at him.

Watch out Yves, here comes a snowball!! 'Gotcha!' Oh, he got a photo of me, I guess he heard me coming with all of those layers of clothes on.

The place where we decided to play in the snow is in a suburb called Corstorphine in Edinburgh. The snow was about 6 inches deep, and there were children everywhere where there were hills, sledding down them.

Post card of Princes St, Edinburgh at dusk. Could never get such a great shot without a state of the art camera, and a helicopter, so I had to cheat for a nice city view of Edinburgh.

Edinburgh is a very historic city, as you can see from the buildings. This pic is of the New Town, which was built in the 1700's. The old town is directly opposite it (not on this card) and dates back to the Romans in 900BC.

View over Edinburgh City Centre from the Cannons in the Castle. The cannons have been restored, and only one is an original, the rest have been bought from US and Brittish Army's/Museums. Apparently where every other country fires their cannons twice at the time when they are supposed to fire them, the Scots only fire once. This all ties in with their reputation of being tight with money (this is what the tour guide told us at the Castle.)

You can see pretty much the main places of the city here, especially Princes St, the most famous street in Scotland. Our favourite place to go in Princes St is Waterstones bookshop, which is a very pretty building with a Starbucks Coffee on the fourth floor. It's a nice place to go to get quality books and relax with a coffee, overlooking Princes St and the Princes St Gardens.

The water in the background of this picture is the sea, where the Firth of Forth is. The streets directly infront of the cannon were not there during the times that the castle was used as a residence to royalty because it is the 'New Town' and the castle is in the 'Old Town'. The new town was built in the late 1700's (That's still older than the oldest parts of Australian cities!)