Ireland, UK 2017: 5/18 Day 16 - Rosslyn Chapel and Hadrian's Wall

"The Holy Grail 'neath ancient Roslin waits / Adorned in masters' loving art, She lies. / The blade and chalice guarding O'er Her gates, / She rests at last beneath the starry skies."
~Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code

Net miles traveled: 222 miles.
 

On a previous post, I explained "baps." Today we ate them. This is a sausage bap. It's sausage on a roll, often eaten with "brown sauce" (kind of like A-1.)

After our Bap breakfast, we walked to the Enterprise car rental office located in the train station . We completed the paperwork and were off for the day.






We visited Rosslyn Chapel. Photography is not allowed inside the chapel, but Jeff managed to take some nice pictures of the outside.

As we continued driving south, we made a stop at the Famous Blacksmith shop in Gretna Green. In the mid 18th century, laws governing marriage became stricter in England, but remained less so in Scotland. It became popular for couples to elope just over the border in Scotland, where practically anyone could perform a marriage ceremony.  The blacksmiths in Gretna Green were willing to perform the ceremony and were closest to the Scottish-English border.  Today, the location is  still considered a romantic place to have a wedding.

Hadrian's Wall was our main destination for the day.  Built around 122-128 A.D., it marked the northernmost edge of the Roman Empire for 300 years.

We only walked along a small portion of the wall, but it was an arduous exercise up and down steep hills. 

 We specifically wanted to walk along the section that leads to Sycamore Gap Tree, voted England’s Tree of the Year 2016.  This tree and section of the wall also appeared in the movie Robin Hood Prince of Thieves.

Craigmillar Castle was our final stop for the day. We arrived after hours, so the main gate was closed. A woman out walker her dogs very helpfully explained how we could walk around to the back and step over the gate to enter the courtyard. We chose not to go to that extreme, and opted instead to be satisfied with pictures from various angles of the  outside.

 
Outlander fans will be seeing this castle as the setting for Ardsmuir Prison in Season 3.