Our Honeymoon Pictures, Part I

Back to wedding related things for a few quick posts, here are a a select number of pictures from our honeymoon! We went to Edinburgh, Conwy (Wales), and London and had a glorious time. There are so many things to see and do that we couldn’t take it all in. By the end we had been museum-ed out and were ready to go home, which was a nice feeling actually, because we weren’t lamenting the fact that we had to return to real life.

The hair flowers from the wedding day (photos here) traveled around with us and lasted a week into our honeymoon! Here they are on the plane on wedding day with super adorable salt and pepper shakers.

The weather in Scotland mostly looked like this.

Here’s some clouds over the castle, with the stands for the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo off to the right.

One of the highlights of our entire trip was getting day-of tickets to the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo. This amazing annual performance of military bands, music, and dancing from around the world brings together thousands of people and is televised in more than 40 countries! It was suggested to us by our local host and was downright jaw dropping! The performances take place literally outside the gate to the historic castle and involve, amongst other amazing performances, hundreds of bagpipes and bagpipers wearing so much tartan!

I couldn’t even get close to getting all the performers in one picture!

We took most of a day to walk/hike up Arthur’s Seat, an extinct volcano, right in Edinburgh. The orange speck on the rocks is Mr. Q.

After Edinburgh, we headed to northern Wales for a long weekend for some in-between-cities time. This is Conwy, the town we stayed in, with a castle from the end of the13th century.

We stayed at a bed and breakfast that backed right up to the town walls.

Conwy was lovely and small. We could walk across the town in about ten minutes, had a variety of really neat historic house and castle museums to visit without being overwhelmed, and even got to hang out on the wharf for a local Saturday festival with live music. And Wales was nice and green, reminding me very much of the Pacific Northwest, where I grew up. I highly recommend it!

Modern roads don’t quite fit under 13th century castle walls…

Also, Wales (well, and the UK in general) is full of sheep! We took the train between each destination and got to spend lots of time looking out the windows and exclaiming at the sheep! Plus, I got my tartan wool picnic blanket and scarf. Sheep!

It only took about a day and a half to see everything inside the town walls of Conwy, so we took a day for a little trip not far outside town to Bodnant Garden. It’s an amazing garden that’s been tended for over 150 years with plants from around the globe. There are all sorts of different types of gardens and forest areas to explore and it was easy to spend hours roaming around.

Look, it’s me!

Looking at a very tall, old tree!

It wouldn’t fit in the picture!

Similar trees, for scale.

Mr. Q, looking short next to other tall trees.

This was the closet we got to… sheep!

Formal garden within Bodnant Garden.

Our final stop was London, where we went to shows, got thoroughly drenched in rainstorms almost every day, went to many museums and sights (The British Museum, The Victoria and Albert, The National Gallery, Portobello Road, The Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, and St. Paul’s, to name a few), visited famous stores (Liberty of London and Fortnum and Mason, for example), and generally stayed super busy. We also discovered a super yummy vegetarian restaurant called Tibits in a lovely, quiet little alcove off of Regent Street, which was perfect for hanging out as the sun set and people watching while eating really amazing food. So amazing, in fact, that Mr. Q bought me their cookbook for a birthday present (with a hint from me, of course)! I haven’t had a chance to make anything from it yet, but I look forward to having the time!

The view from the top observation area at St. Paul’s.

The sun did come out at the very end of our stay and it was such a change from grey!

And I took a day while we were in London to have a special day trip that I haven’t mentioned yet… A Harry Potter day! I’ve got enough pictures to do a whole post just for that, though, so watch out. I’m really looking forward to some hang-around vacations vs. the go-do-everything style of our honeymoon, though I don’t regret getting to visit so many amazing things and places! It was quite a memorable trip.