Our flat is quite close to Holyrood Park. And, from our window upstairs, we're even able to see a pretty little church and a large hill rising in the background. Cole and I really love the view! Here's a picture taken from our window:
Here's a little information on Arthur's Seat. It is the the main peak of the group of hills which form most of Holyrood Park, a wild piece of highland landscape in the centre of the city of Edinburgh, about a mile to the east of Edinburgh Castle. The hill rises above the city to a height of 251 m (823 ft), provides excellent panoramic views of the city, is quite easy to climb, and is a popular walk. Though it can be climbed from almost any direction, the easiest and simplest ascent is from the East, where a grassy slope rises above Dunsapie Loch. (Thanks Wikipedia!)
We fondly remember these hills from our visit back in 2002. Once, while Cole was at his conference, I decided to trek up the hills and wound up at Arthur's Seat. It was lovely up there, and later during the week, Cole, Joe Hartman, and I went up. This time we were accompanied by a college of theirs, Phil Scarf, who went up the mountain wearing dress shoes. We didn't choose the best path and Phil went up like a mountain goat making it look quite easy. We, on the other hand, were scrambling up with our hands and knees in contact with the ground.
All this to say that we really hope our girls inherited some of our sense of adventure and love of hiking. We live in Florida, so the girls lives mostly consist of swimming and lots of heat. Cole and I like cool weather and love camping, hiking, and backpacking. Since we've had kids we really haven't done much of this. So, we were thrilled when Katie asked when we were going to go "climb the mountain." Then, she asked again 5 minutes later.... And, again another 5 minutes later.... You get the point. We weren't as thrilled after the 100th time, but we still wanted to let the girls "climb the mountain."
Monday was the first day that Cole was off at the University working. I was left to fend for myself with the kids. We were going to visit a local gym (Er, "Fitness Club"), but they didn't have enough people there to watch the girls while I checked things out. So, we got the double stroller ready and we set off to climb the mountain!
We basically just walked toward the mountain behind the church that you can see in the pictures above. Then, we went down a hill and found stairs that led up to a path. We all went up the stairs and followed a dirt path around. This then led to a path with built in steps (with the wooden beams) that went down to a road, across from which is Holyrood Park. The girls had fun playing along the path and climbing around there.
It took a bit of time to safely cross the road. It was only 2 lanes wide, but the traffic was staggered enough that it felt like we stood there forever. The girls were great. They stayed close to me and they didn't even complain. (Wow!) Then, we went to the park and the girls had fun climbing the mountain! However, there were some brambles that scratched up their legs a bit and both big girls swore up and down that from now on they would wear pants (under their skirts or dresses) whenever they went hiking.
(If you're wondering about Claire's outfit, she actually picked out the zebra hot pants. She insisted on wearing them over her pants. I didn't have the heart to take them off of her before we left the flat.) And, Claire was a bit of a handful at the end. She wanted to be carried, but I couldn't always do that. So, Katie helped out a bunch by picking her up and moving her around. She actually even helped her up the steps on the way back to the flat!
Remember I said that I put the kids in the stroller??? At first, I ditched the stroller right at the top of the first set of stairs that we climbed. I wasn't sure if I would come straight back on the same path, so I lugged that thing up, around, and down the path the whole way! So, I didn't get to go to the fitness club, but I'm pretty sure I got a decent work out! The girls did, too, since a lot of the places we went weren't exactly stroller friendly. So, they had to walk most of the way. And, at the end, Katie was talking about how tired she was from carrying Claire around!
Well, we had fun. We didn't really make it very far up the mountain and the girls were well aware of that. So, one day soon we'll head back (with Cole) to see how far we can actually make it!
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