Here’s the final installment of my Edinburgh photos. Enjoy!

Looking toward the old city from Princes St

Cute house in the park in-between the old and new towns

Another view of the castle

This is a war memorial inside one on the churches off of Princes St.

Here’s the church next door

Great ceiling

Nice place…

Here’s the Sir Walter Scott memorial along Princes St.

This is the home of the Royal Bank of Scotland

I never made it over to this hill, unfortunately…

Holyrood Palace, the home of The Queen when she’s in Scotland

This is the old Abbey next door to the palace. As you can see, it’s not in good
shape

How about some night pics? I think this is St. Giles Church

Looking toward the Balmoral Hotel from near Old Town

City Hall

The castle at night… not easy to photograph from this side. If I knew my way
around better I would’ve tried from the other side… oh well, next time!

That’s all for my trip photos! Hope you enjoyed viewing them as much as I
enjoyed taking them!

On my second day in Edinburgh I first went to the castle which makes the city
famous. After that there was plenty of walking around town, which hopefully
burned off some of the Cadbury’s Dairy Milk bars that I’d been eating all week.

Part two of my Edinburgh photos after the link.

Here’s the gate to Edinburgh Castle

One of the inner gates, complete with portcullis

Plenty of cannons protected the castle

Lots to see here, from the Walter Scott memorial (left) to the Balmoral Hotel
(center) to the Lord Nelson memorial in the way back

This is the 1 O’Clock gun,which is still fired every day at 1pm (though I wasn’t
around to hear it)

This gun was particularly large, with a range of two miles

Awesome stained glass inside the chapel

Artsy shot for the day

One of the many buildings inside the castle

Now I’m out of the castle, looking down the Royal Mile. The Camera Obscura (which
appeared to be an expensive tourist trap) is on the left. The Church-turned-cafe
(I think) is on the right.

Edinburgh has many curving streets, like this one (Victoria St.)

The whole castle complex as seen from the roof of the Scottish History Museum.
Thanks to the random old Scottish guy on the street for the tip on this one.

Old church and cemetary

Inside the church

Nice windows

Lots of impressive stained glass in this town

I *think* this is inside of St. Giles cathedral, but don’t quote me on that

That’s it for part two… I’ve got more door and church photos on Edinburgh
page three!

I’ve got so many photos from the fabulous city of Edinburgh that I have to
split them into three entries! They’re presented (more or less) in the order
in which they were taken, and forgive me if I forgot what the sights were called
– it was sort of a whirlwind trip.

When I first arrived in Edinburgh I thought that this was the castle… as I
later discovered, it’s not.

The building on the left (with the clocktower) is a hotel. Not sure what’s on
the right.

At the end of the Royal Mile is Holyrood Park, where you can hike to the top
of Arthur’s Seat, which offers a sweeping view over Edinburgh

Looking back down the hill as I work my way up toward the "seat"

Wildflowers along the way

Getting there… this is a grueling hike by the way, though some routes seem
to be less strenuous than others

I made it! Here’s a view of the old city, including the castle

Looking the other direction toward what looks like farmland

Coming back down the hill now, near sunset

What gallery would be complete without a door photo?

The Royal Mile

Unique building on the Royal Mile

Nice old buildings

I think this is a war memorial in front of City Hall?

Nice old church which has been turned into a cafe (bah)

One of many pubs on the Royal Mile

There’s more Edinburgh in part
two!

Well, here’s my London by day gallery — though it’s really off the beaten
track. On the day when I actually planned to see the sights, it just rained
all day, so I spent most of my time ducking into museums or drying off in my
hotel room. So, no Tower Bridge photos in this somewhat unusual London gallery.

This was my home base for my days in London. Very nice, decent location, though
amenities were way overpriced, even before you consider the weak US
dollar

I spent an awful lot of time walking down Oxford Street to one of the tube stations.
It seemed to be bustling at all hours of the day and night.

Don’t recall the name of this church, but it’s just off of Oxford St.

One of London’s most famous hotels

Marble Arch is 2 minutes from my hotel

Hyde Park residents

Fall has arrived

Bridge over The Serpentine in Hyde Park. I should’ve crossed it, and instead
kept going and got lost.

Nice little spot at the edge of Hyde Park (I think)

As if I needed another church photo…

I took the 15 minute tour of the Natural History Museum. They have a nice dinosaur
collection, for sure

Royal College of Music

Albert Memorial (in the rain)

Royal Albert Hall

This shot of the Millennium Bridge gives you a good idea as to how lousy the
weather was that day… oh well, I’ve seen the other stuff before!

That’s all for London — next up: Edinburgh.

After my walk around Regents Park, I took the train out to Guildford to meet
my friend Simon, who also works for dpreview. We met up with his wife Claire
and young son Felix and went to the local pub. There I had a traditional English
lunch — meat, potatoes, and Yorkshire pudding (which, incidentally, isn’t
really pudding). After that we hopped into the
car and toured around the beautiful Surrey and Sussex countryside, stopping
in some very old
villages.

Here we are in Shere, a very old and quaint village in Surrey

Yes, more doors

Doors, doors, doors

I’ll take it!

Old old old church

And here’s the proof

Lovely stained glass

Now we’re in Petworth, another old village, complete with cobblestone streets

Yet another door

One last church…

I woke up at the crack of dawn on Sunday morning, so I walked over to Regents
Park. It was MOST impressive, as you’ll see in the photos.

Technically, All Saints Church isn’t in Regents Park — but since I passed
it on the way there, here it is.

There you have it… just a small portion of Regents Park. I was hoping to
make it over to Kew Gardens as well, but the weather isn’t allowing it.

Per Phil’s recommendation, I took a late night stroll along the Thames, between
roughly Parliament and the Blackfriers Bridge. Follow the link to see the pics!

Bustling Oxford Street is around the corner from my hotel and on the way to the
tube station

Parliament. The security around this building is nuts.

Looking up at what everyone calls Big Ben

Close-up

Looking across the Thames at the London Eye and County Hall

Now I’m across the river, looking back at Parliament

London Eye

I think this is the Hungerford Bridge. Whatever it’s called, it’s bolted onto
the side of a train bridge.

Another view of the same bridge

The trees are lit up near the OXO building

Two for the price of one: a nice view of the river AND fireworks!

One of these days I’ll actually post some photos of London in the daytime!

Yesterday, my friend Phil (of dpreview fame) and I made a quick stop in Windsor.
It would’ve been a longer stop had the castle actually been open. Anyhow, here
are some pics from around "town".

Windsor Castle

Unfortunately, they stop letting people in at 3pm

I like alleyways almost as much as I like…

… doors!

The crooked house in all Windsor!

The swans aren’t all gathered like this for fun… people are feeding them

The weather was going downhill rapidly (note the dark clouds), so we took
off after that photo!

And now, here’s the second half of my York photos!

I think I should make a coffee table book of European doors

Very quaint

More quaitness

Lots of cool old buildings here

Buildings seem to lean into the narrow street

I just like the name of this place

Britain’s version of the 99-cent store…

All Saints church

What’s left of the old castle

My favorite sign in all of York

Yet another door/gate

Now I’m walking on the city wall

York Minster towers over everything in the village

One last look at York Minster

All in all, I liked York… I felt like it was hard to navigate…
like I was going in circles (I probably was). But it definitely was worth the
2 hour train ride.

Finally, I’ve got some
pictures to post from my ongoing UK trip. I’ve been running around like crazy
since I got here, so I haven’t had a chance to put together a gallery until
now.

My first two galleries don’t feature London — that’s coming later. Instead,
I’ve got a bunch of pics from the quaint town of York, about two hours out
of London. Hit the link for the first set of photos. All of my photos were
taken with the Canon EOS-40D with the 17-85 IS lens, by the way.

Train station

York is an old walled city… here’s the view from outside the city walls.

One of the gates into the old city

The River Ouse

The former St. Mary’s Abbey

If you’ve forgotten last
year’s trip photos, I like taking pictures of doors

Don’t quote me on this, but I think this is St. Michel-le-Belfry

York "don’t call it a cathedral" Minster

Doors of York Minster

Everything else on this page is York Minster

Now we’re inside… this is the largest cathedral in Northern Europe

That’s quite a wall of glass

Yep, it’s quite a place

I don’t know why, but I think of Indiana Jones when I see these

More stained glass

Close-up of some of the stained glass

Great ceiling!

This is the view from halfway up the 275 steps to the top of the tower. Nice
flying buttresses!

Here’s the view from the top, after a grueling climb… not only is it a lot
of stairs, but it’s a TIGHT fit.

This picture isn’t to show you the view of the city. The arrows are pointing
to *three* separate nuclear power plants near York. I counted SIX of them within
30 minutes of the city. We only have two in the whole State of California!

That’s all for part one of my York photos… click
here for part two!