Ghost Tours, Arhtur's Saddle, and Street performers

For day 12 and our second day in Edinburgh we wandered around even more of the beautiful city. Princess Street is the main high road which has tons of shops, Scottish tourist stops, and even some street performers!

There were a few cool food shops and we stopped in to get some cheese and then later some delicious fudge (this stuff was incredible!)

After the shops we were persuaded to stop and watch a Polish street performer who enticed us with talks of sword swallowing, 10 foot high unicycle riding, juggling while on a "rola-bola" (oh if only you could hear his voice as he exclaimed how tough it was to ride his "rola bola", which was essentially a 3 foot long board that he balanced on a can on the floor). While his explanation of his stunts weren't spectacular and the tricks were somewhat ordinary, the crowd couldn't help to like the guy. And guess what...I got picked to help him out with tricks from the audience!

First he handed me three squishy red balls and had me tell the crows how many there were. Then he did a bunch of magical hand games making the balls multiply and disappear and I honestly had no idea how he was doing it (he even had his sleeves rolled up!) Then he asked me to hold his fire juggling sticks for a while as he got assistance from two men in the audience so he could mount the gigantic unicycle. Once there, he tossed me his lighter with the instructions to light the juggling sticks and then throw them to him! After the first successful light and throw he decided I had tossed him the wrong one. So after about 5 tries he finally had his flaming juggling sticks and let me go back to the audience with a round of applause. It was so fun!

Later we decided to do a hike up to Arthurs Saddle, a large hill outside of the city with some spectacular views. After the hike, we made our way down the backside of the mountain to have a Sunday roast at the oldest pub in Edinburgh, the Sheep Head Inn.

We also got to spend some time at Calton Hill, another hillside with superb views of the city and the castle, and definitely well worth the short treck up some steep stairs. At the top are some Romanesque ruins and other interesting buildings that make for a great place to lounge around while seeing the views.

Edinburgh is also known for it's haunted underground tunnels, so we had an evening tour of the tunnels which was interesting, and somewhat cheesy. But the history was interesting as the tunnels were originally built because of the immense overcrowding in the city. So they were devised as storage places and shops, but due to wars and other misfortunes they eventually became a place for the homeless and down-and-out.