Edinburgh

Friday night, after Pat came home from work, we threw on our backpacks and headed to the York train station for a 2.5 hr. ride to the heart of Edinburgh. The old part of Edinburgh is the tourist's mecca consisting of a castle complex on a rocky outcrop and the Palace of Holyrood House (the queen's 1 week summer home) at the bottom of the hill. The Royal Mile connects the two.

As a big Braveheart fan, I loved to see that statues of William Wallace and Robert the Bruce flank the entrance to the castle. There's even a chapel inside with a stain glass window dedicated to William Wallace among the saints' windows. Now I know that the story in the movie isn't quite accurate, but the gist of it is on target and has obviously inspired Scotland. I especially love the inscription over the entrance "What you do to us... we will do to you." Talk about straightforward. Interesting note about the castle--there's a graveyard for the officer's canine companions and military mascots. The tombstones that we could read had names like Don, Major, and Scamp.


The Royal Mile is a street packed with a jumble of medieval skyscrapers (5 stories or so) and churches. A series of narrow allies or "close" connect the old main drag with courtyards and provide access to buildings downhill. Today, the ground floors are packed with Scotland kitsch. It's very obvious you're in Scotland. From the tartan carpet, bus seat covers, and menu backdrops, there's no mistaking it. We walked by average people, that didn't seem to be interested in posing for tourists, fully dressed in the kilt regalia more than once. Bagpipes were sometimes playing on the corner.


At the end of the Royal Mile, near the palace, are two interesting things: the new Scottish parliament building and Arthur's Seat.

The parliament building is a modern structure that integrates with it's natural surroundings and stands in stark contrast to the medieval stone structures nearby. It really struck us as unusual since it's a government building. We both thought it was a college at first.


Arthur's Seat is an extinct volcano that has some dramatic geological features. Pat and I walked around Salisbury Crags one day and to the top the next. It was probably my favorite place. From the top you could see the North Sea, the castle, the Royal Mile, ski slopes, an oil refinery, and farmland off in the distance. There's not one tree on it so you can see every little spec of a person as you climb.




Edinburgh is an impressive city and a lot more engaging than I expected. I thought it might be less sophisticated or less polished than some other big cities. Don't ask me why. Maybe it's the crap the Scottish get from the English. But it's no backwater town. It's actually "Europe's first great grid-planned modern city" and the interest in urban planning shows. They've done a really good job connecting major points of power (now tourist spots), creating beautiful parks nearby, and integrating transportation.

Other random things we learned about Edinburgh and Scotland... Lowland and Midland Scots wear tartan trousers while only the Highland people wear tartan kilts, the Scottish regiments in the English army wore kilts to war and fought to the sound of bagpipes, the crown jewels spent almost as much time in hiding as on display, lots of famous literary people came from there, more witches were burned in Scotland per capita than in any other country (17,000), Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde is based on a real guy who was executed in Edinburgh, and whisky marmalade is good.


It's definitely worth a visit.