North Berwick / Tantallon Castle

4月12日和13日，苏格兰有许多名胜古迹开放免费让游人参观。去年11月尾我们去了城堡和皇宫。这回想去没去过的地方。礼拜六天气不好，只是在下午靖恒睡醒后去了一下城堡。到了礼拜天，看看天气有好转，便带靖恒到火车站搭火车。有两个想去的景点，一时还做不了决定。到了火车站，找到了其中一个地方的火车时间表。眼看火车也快要走了，就决定去那里。比较不方便的是，要去那个免费开放的城堡还得再坐巴士。
到了那里，赶去找旅游询问处，才发现星期天没有开。走回头找巴士站，那里只有回爱丁堡的巴士。终于问了一个在等巴士的人，告诉我们去城堡的巴士站是在旅游询问处外。又走回去看时间表：星期天才一班车去，一班车回。去的时间是下午1点，回的时间是5点45分。虽然觉得有点晚，但想到既然来到这里了，就去吧。路途大概有两英里，如果建明肯的话，也许可以走回来（因为抱靖恒的人是他嘛）。我们先在海边吃了三文治；靖恒吃得很慢，所以没有吃完就先去搭巴士，到了城堡继续吃。游玩了一下，下午3点，我们看看太阳出来，没下雨了，决定不等巴士，改用步行回小镇。主要是因为回爱丁堡还要半个小时的火车程，不想太迟到家。
好长的路，因为带着靖恒。建明时而抱他，时而让他自己走。他也仅在建明肩上睡了半个小时。睡觉那段路最辛苦吧，比较难抱。终于到达小镇，赶去火车站搭5点20分的火车回爱丁堡。到了爱丁堡，再赶回家煮晚饭。
虽然累，但是难得出去走走，挺值得的。

火车站：

坐火车：

North Berwick 小镇：

在海边吃午餐：

Tantallon Castle:

Brass Rock:

Panorama:


天气转晴：

走回小镇：

小镇到了，还要走去另一端搭火车：

终于到火车站了：

回程：

12 and 13 April being Free Weekend for a few historic sites in Scotland, we decided to make use of it. On Saturday, the weather was too gloomy, so we only went to Edinburgh Castle for an hour in the late afternoon, just before it closed. On Sunday, after Jianming's early church, we went to the train station - we had two places in mind, both not in the city of Edinburgh since we had been to its most prominent attraction already, the Edinburgh Castle.
Ethan was excited by the train station itself. Imagine how much more excited he was to be on a train! We decided to go to Tantallon Castle instead of Linlithgow Palace because we found the train timetable for North Berwick, the town nearest to the castle. From North Berwick, you would need to take a 10 min bus ride to the castle, but we thought we would find out as we went along.
Unfortunately, the tourist centre at North Berwick was closed on Sundays, so we had to walk around for sometime before finally learning from someone that the bus stop to the castle was just in front of the tourist centre! The bus would leave at 1 pm and the return bus would only pick us up at 5.45pm. But as it was about 2 miles away, we thought it would be feasible to walk back to the town if we did not want to wait for the bus. As it turned out, we did walk our way back to the town. The journey was longer than we thought, probably because of Ethan.
Still, we got back to Edinburgh in time for dinner. :)
North Berwick is a nice seaside town itself, where the Scottish Seabird Centre and the National Museum of Flight reside. I wouldn't have minded much if we had had to remain in the town and couldn't go to the castle. Walking about the town was like a trip in itself already - especially with a kid, one could not ask for much.